The highest ground in Kentucky rises right behind Cumberland. Black Mountain, at about 1,260 metres, lies just to the southeast on the Virginia line, and the town itself sits in the deep, narrow valley of Poor Fork of the Cumberland River beneath the long ridge of Pine Mountain. This is Harlan County, a name that carries heavy weight in American labour history, and the surrounding hollows were once among the most productive coal fields in the country.
Next door are Benham and Lynch, two old company towns built in the early twentieth century, one by International Harvester and the other by U.S. Steel, which for a time ran one of the largest coal camps in the world at Lynch. Today you can ride into Portal 31, a restored mine in Lynch, on a small rail car and learn what the work was like underground. The rows of company houses, the brick commissaries and the mine portals make this a place where industrial history is visible from the saddle.
Kingdom Come State Park sits on the crest of Pine Mountain directly above Cumberland, reached by a steep, winding road. It takes its name from John Fox Jr.'s novel The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, and it has rock formations, overlooks and a small lake at the top. The views across the ridges into Virginia are wide, and black bears live in the forest, sometimes wandering near the picnic areas.
For riding, this is serious mountain country. Route 160 climbs over Black Mountain into Virginia in a sequence of tight, steep bends with little traffic and a real sense of remoteness. US 119 follows the valley and then crosses Pine Mountain toward Whitesburg in sweeping curves with long views. Surfaces range from good to rough, and coal trucks are less common than they once were but still appear, often fast and wide in the corners.
Cumberland is a small town with fuel, a few local places to eat and a grocery store, though hours can be short. Big Stone Gap in Virginia, about twenty-five kilometres east, and Harlan to the west are larger. The valleys hold fog in the mornings, and the high roads are noticeably cooler than the lowland, which is a gift on a July day.