I got another awesome opportunity to spend the night at LeConte Lodge Tuesday of this past week. I freaking love Mt. LeConte. My sister sent me this picture, which is the view from her front porch, while I was up there. The blue house in the foreground is the house where we grew up. So basically, I've looked at this mountain my whole life. It wasn't until I actually started hiking that I realized, "Oh, hey, that's Mt. LeConte!" Nonetheless, I see it all the time and always wish I was up there taking in the view (especially when it's clear like this).
I didn't get lucky enough to get a reservation in this year's lottery, but Friends of the Smokies was able to reserve the entire Lodge for one of its "Classic Hikes of the Smokies" fundraisers, and I happily donated enough money to reserve four spots on the hike. I invited Latisha because (1) she's fun to hike with; and (2) she was kind enough to invite me when she got a lottery reservation for the 2020 season (which turned into the 2021 season due to Covid). I also invited our friend Brittany (who traveled to Italy with us a few years ago) and my sister, Dara. Brittany ended up having jury duty and, at the very last minute, Dara was unable to come due to a colicky horse (she was very disappointed, as her first hike since high school was a day hike with me to LeConte, and somehow she loved it even though it was probably torturous). Latisha and I soldiered on, though, and were a little excited about each having a bed to ourselves in our now 2-man cabin.
We were probably more excited about the awesome sunset and sunrise we anticipated seeing due to a very cooperative weather forecast. But first, we had to make it to the top of the mountain. The entire FOTS group went up the Alum Cave trail. While I love FOTS and love the fact that they did this hike that gave me an opportunity to stay at the Lodge this year, I hate hiking in groups. I am just not down with crowded hiking trails, and having 45 people traipsing up the mountain at essentially the same time (along with other day hikers) is just not good, for many reasons.
BUT, after we got to the Bluffs, the group was more spread out, and the hiking was more enjoyable. There was a "lunch stop" at the Bluffs, and people stopped for varying amounts of time (Latisha and I did not stop long). Also, after the Bluffs, the climbing gets much more strenuous, so the group naturally spread out according to people's hiking speeds. I still didn't stop and take many pictures, though, because if we were lucky enough to be hiking by ourselves, I didn't want to let other people catch up. It probably didn't matter, because we were leapfrogging people all day depending on when we stopped for rest breaks. I did manage to get a few pictures.
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| Climbing through Arch Rock |
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| Some painted trillium. The trillium was much smaller in the higher elevations than I've seen it earlier this Spring in the lowers. I don't know if it's just different varieties or different climates. |
Tish and I stayed somewhere in the middle of the pack. Definitely not the first to arrive up top, but there were still people arriving an hour after we got there, so we didn't feel too bad about our time (especially given my general laziness over the past year or so and the fact that Latisha hasn't hiked in quite a while).
Anyway, we got checked in early enough for a couple of hours of leisure time before dinner. I should mention that, during our leisure time, the FOTS lady who coordinated the trip asked if Latisha and I would mind sharing a bed so she could add another lady to our cabin. I was not thrilled about that (the reason I bought four spots was so that we wouldn't have to share a cabin with a stranger); however, this lady had essentially been kicked out of her assigned cabin by a b*tch who declared, "I'm not sleeping with you. I don't know you." Even though EVERY SINGLE COMMUNICATION FOTS sent regarding this trip said that if you don't register with a friend, you will likely end up sharing a bed with someone you don't know (the beds in the cabin are almost all double beds). So, even though the prima donna's bad behavior got rewarded at my expense (because she certainly hadn't purchased two slots to ensure her own bed), the lady who came to stay with us was very nice, and I didn't have the heart to make her feel even more homeless. So our two-man cabin became a three-man cabin.
Anyway, after dinner with our new friend Cindy, we headed up to Cliff Tops for sunset, which was amazing. Just amazing.
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| The Sand Myrtle was blooming and was so pretty! |
After sunset, we went back to the Lodge for early bedtime to get ready for an early hike to Myrtle Point for sunrise.
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| The view down into Sevier County from the Lodge at night is pretty cool. |
We mistimed our sunrise hike a bit, as the sky already had some color when we got out of bed. When I see sunrise (or set), I don't want to see the actual sunrise event itself. I mean, I do, but that's not the only thing I want to see. I think the prettiest part of sunrise and sunset is the colorful part just before the official sunrise/set happens. So I was a little panicky that the sky already looked like this when we stepped out of our cabin:
But we hustled out to Myrtle Point, grabbed a few photos on the way, and still got there in time to enjoy a beautiful sunrise.
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| Hello, Douglas Lake. And Dara's house just beyond. |
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| Full moon still shining over the NC mountains. |
After sunrise, we headed back to the Lodge for breakfast; and after that we headed down the trail towards home. We had a choice of going down the Rainbow Falls or Bull Head trails, as all of our cars were parked at the parking area that serves both. I chose Bull Head because it's the only LeConte trail I hadn't yet done. I think most of our group went down Rainbow Falls, so there was a much lighter crowd on the trail on the way down.
Bull Head started off a little slow view-wise (compared to Rainbow Falls, at least), but there were some cool wildflowers to keep us entertained.
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| Hobblebush |
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| Twistedstalk |
The views opened up about halfway down and pretty much stayed plentiful for the rest of the trail, with some flowers mixed in for good measure.
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| White clintonia (according to PlantNet) |
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| My rhodies are coming out! Stay tuned for the next blog to see how they currently look in the NC higher elevations. |
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| "The Pulpit" |
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| There are still a lot of scars from the (relatively) recent fires, but I was amazed at how much more regrowth there is this year compared to our hike on Rainbow Falls last year. |
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| According to my good friend and knower of all things, Kevin, the weird patterns in the trees on the mountains in the foreground are fire regrowth patterns. |
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| You can see some of the regrowth patterns on the right, and on the left is part of the area that was not damaged by the fires. |
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| A dead skunk in the trail. With a rock on top of it, for whatever reason. It did not smell good. |
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| Mountain laurel was looking great all the way down the trail! |
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| More mountain laurel, and more regrowth patterns. That little building under the tree branch in the top left is the Park Vista hotel, so you can kind of see how the fire moved down the mountain towards Gatlinburg. |
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| Some kind of allspice, I think |
It's always good to be able to hike mid-week, and it's especially good when an overnight at LeConte is involved. I could write more, but I won't, because I think the pictures tell a better story, and there are quite a lot of those. 😏
Unduplicated Smokies miles: 285.65
Total Smokies miles: 375.2
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