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Alex Morris's overnight to the LeConte Lodge 3/31/05

Ed, here is my documentary on the days and night of my sixteenth time to Mt. Le Conte. Please Post this on your site. Thank you, God Bless, Alex Morris It’s around 9:00am and my parents and are starting on Alum Cave Trail, greeted by very cloudy skies. I actually intended to take The Boulevard Trail, it being my most favorite trail. This makes my sixteenth time in four years on Mt. Le Conte so I’m calling my “sweet sixteen”. My parents and I are very fresh and ready to hit, in my opinion, the steepest trail, other than Low Gap Trail over in Cosby, in the Park. Of course to my experiences and knowledge, Cosby is notorious for it’s rough trails. I’m guessing it’s 9:30 when we’re at Arch Rock. My dad’s doing fine, but mom’s lungs are probably beginning to waver a bit. Going up the steps was all right, and trying to get up that last stretch of steps is no slice-a-cake, especially in wet weather like it had been doing the night before. I’m guessing it’s 10:00 at Inspiration Pt., I can see some light clouds, maybe a very small clearing , but the clouds haven’t changed much according to my stand point. However, nonetheless it’s not raining so I can’t complain so far. 10:15 and we’re at Alum Cave with clouds flying into the Cave area. One thing I like about clouds is, they make dew drops hang on the spruce and fir trees and lovely pictures of fir trees in gray and white backgrounds. 11:00 and we’re at our favorite rest spot, a pile of cut down spruce trees with one log end cut out to make a one man seat. And the clouds are just right for foggy fir pictures. Mom’s at medium strength and with 2/3 of the climb still yet to come, yeah, she’s going to need a nap when we get settled into our lodgings. 11:45 - the uppermost stairs. 12:00 - the upper pulpit with the dew drops on the trees, and mom’s in need of encouragement so, I’m starting to stress my pep talk. Dad and I are having a good time. One highly noticeable characteristic on the trail is an old spruce or fir tree fallen on the trail, possibly from some hard winds, as it seems. 1:00 and we’re @ the lodge, and as we check-in I bought my parents and myself this year’s shirts. While buying the shirts I got myself a bandana with like a USGS quad map, and a very nice hiking stick. 1:30 we’ve settled into our lodgings and my mom has settled into a nap. I’m going to get some of my favorite hot chocolate. While I was getting the hot chocolate, I also ordered a chocolate cake. I like my sweets at diner time. After all that, I must have called my nana 3 times, trying to tell her about the trip so far. One thing I have noticed very well about Mt. Le Conte. Cell phone signals are almost impossible to keep intact up there. 2:00 and here comes dad for coffee, and when he got into the dining hall, he decide that I should go get mom up and bring her to the dining hall so she could warm herself up. At 2:15, mom gets up and comes to the dining hall and sees the heat’s on at the stove next to the French doors. As she’s stands over the fire, she starts gets warm and have. At 2:30 we’re all rested up and feeling much better, and started meeting our new found friends. While all this is happening, and decide to take pictures with my digital camera. 4:00 - 6:00, mom’s taking another nap while and dad and I talk around a bit here and there. And I sometimes went out to meet some other people and look around the office taking pictures, occasionally.  6:00 - it’s dinner time and that’s when I was getting a little hungry so, that timed out just right. The clouds lifted and before and after eating I took some glorious pictures from all angles possible from the back porch of the dining hall. While eating, we met plenty of good people, and one group at our table came up the Boulevard, they said the last mile was nothing but ice. So we’re happy we didn’t go that way. As you know I ordered a cake, and just by a coincidence a 10 yr. Old boy, named Samuel, was having a birthday the next day so, he and his father, Mike got a kick out of that. 6:30 - I finished my dinner. Grabbing my camera, I had to run to get those sunset from Cliff Top pictures I adore so much. When I got to the top I raced to get what could be over 20 pictures from the sunset. Never in my whole life have I ever seen such a clear and beautiful sunset. I continue snapping, snapping, snapping, snapping, snapping, snapping, snapping, snapping, snapping, and snapping away. Too bad that I couldn't post the other ten pictures. 7:00 - I’m playing cards with some newfound friends. Talking with Mike and Samuel about my earlier trips to Mt. Le Conte. While playing cards, Samuel was warning us about what a mighty hand he had on him, and I said to him, “remember the cake at dinner.”, and he said to me, “yes master”. 9:30 - We’re settling in for bed. 12:30 am- I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep so I tried to take pictures of the city lights but pfft!, my camera does not work well at night. 2:30 - I go back to sleep only to wake-up at 3:30. 3:30- I’m taking more pictures. Altogether, I took 122 pictures on this trip. 4:00 - I’m starting to wonder about breakfast. I took some pictures inside the lodge building we’re in while keeping myself warm over the heater in the living room. Occasionally going to the restrooms. None of us got much sleep that night. 7:00 - we all go to the office for morning coffee. While drinking coffee, I showed a young lady some of the pictures in my camera. Clouds are starting rush in again. I’m thinking, “ it might rain as we’re going down”. 8:00 - It’s breakfast time, I am thrilled about the pancakes. My mom and dad are actually wanting to hurry-up and leave so, as soon as we’re done with breakfast, we’re leaving pretty quickly. 8:30 - we’re leaving, wearing all our clothes out with raincoats. trying to keep warm and dry. As we start our descent. It starts to drizzle so, we had a miserable time coming down. So altogether, the trip was all right, but with the knowledge that I had gotten some exquisite pictures of Sunset From Cliff Top so, that’s all the “plus” I actually need.

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