Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Devil Anse Connector to start work todayHey folks,
Big Jim here comin' to you from the heart of HMT Country.
And boy do I have some big news for you. In about two hours work should start going full tilt on the new Devil Anse Connector that will hook up our famous and super-popular Rockhouse Trails to the Matewan area.
As you know, Rockhouse is very popular -especially among our extreme riders- and it is housed in two counties - Mingo County- via Gilbert and Logan County via the town of Man. Some time back it was announced that the next phase of work for HMT would be to connect trails together starting with connecting the trails in Mingo County together then connecting the trails in Logan County together. Well, construction on that phase starts in earnest today.
Awhile back I ran into somebody I know who is in the know who told me "something big is coming real soon," but would not confirm anything. So Monday evening I ran up to the town of Man where Deputy Director Johnny Fekete lives and met with him after the town council meeting where Johnny shared the good news with the town council.
Fekete said work will soon be completed over the next two months on the Rockhouse trail connector that should make a lot of different people happy for several different reasons- not the least of which would be lessening ATV traffic in one residential area.
I hung around a little to talk with Johnny about this.
“We will start pushing on Wednesday on the Devil Anse Connector, “ Fekete said. “This is a long time proposal and when it is completed it will connect the Rochouse Trail to the town of Matewan.”
Fekete said he hoped the project would be completed in a few months, barring any unforeseen delays.
“This is our big project for the year.” Fekete said the idea for the Devil Anse Connector goes back a decade or so to the early days of the Hatfield-McCoy Trails. Now that most of the trails are completed the Hatfield-McCoy Regional Recreation Authority is looking at connecting them together.
Currently the trails offer over 600 miles of managed trails in and around several towns in Southern West Virginia. The trails have proven to be a great success in regards to bringing in tourism dollars to the area and the HMRRA wants to continue that success in making the coalfields a popular tourism destination.
“This will be a very big thing for our riders, “ Fekete said of the Devil Anse Connector.
