Overnight Hike to Mt LeConte Shelter Linda Nicholson and Mike Graves   July 24, 2005

 

Me and Mike had just passed our one year anniversary and had been talking about taking an overnight hike the entire year. One day, he called me and asked if I was off work on Sunday and Monday. I told him I was and we started making plans to visit Mt LeConte and made reservations at the shelter.

 

The last time I hiked up there, I was probably 17 or 18 years old. Let’s just say a good many years has passed since then! I always remembered it because it was warm at the bottom and there was still snow on top. I wore a sweatshirt around my waist on the way up and was damn glad of it when I got there. Others were not so lucky, decked out in their shorts and tank tops, as they beat a hasty retreat from the elements.

 

Sunday started out hot and muggy. There was a heat advisory in place and we got a late start from Mike’s house in Sevierville. We parked the car at the Alum Cave trail head and threw on our packs at 11 am . The first part of the trail was lovely, gently winding along the babbling river and crossing a couple of bridges along the way.

 

We soon worked up a sweat as the noon day heat began to soar and the humidity began to swell from the earth. We brought snacks, macaroni and pepperoni for dinner, also water and grape kool-aid mix (Mike’s idea, and a good one).

 

I had never carried a back pack before. Mine was packed light but was still an adjustment. Alum cave was as magnificent as I remembered it, curving high and majestic over an expanse of soft silt-like soil. We stopped there in its shade and enjoyed a snack while listening to a falcon screaming high overhead. The same falcon we had seen flying in and out of a nesting site just below the “Eye of the Needle” on a solitary peak to the left of the trail.

 

Beyond Alum cave is where it begins to get tough; the trail gets rougher, narrower, and definitely steeper! Thick wire cable is strategically bolted to the rocks at particularly rough, slippery, or narrow areas of the trail. In one location, a three foot section of the trail had eroded in a bowl shape and there was a sobering view of a sheer drop off. One wrong step…, gulp. I was clinging to the cable at that point in time, trying not to think such thoughts.

 

I noticed the air getting cooler and definitely thinner as we moved up the mountain. The cooler part was a good thing—the thinner part was not so good. I began to pant for air, my body craving the oxygen it felt it was being deprived of. After one particularly steep incline, I had to remove my back pack to catch my breath. I believe Mike later described it as “You looked like you were fighting for your life.” Well, that might be a bit of an over-dramatization but I began to realize that all my time as a “flat-lander” in the mid-west was definitely a disadvantage here. (Besides, he’s younger, had been to LeConte at least 4 other times, and is from these hills!) The vistas that we could see through the trees more than made up for any discomfort I may have felt at times. These mountains are like God’s Church to my soul.

 

I did not remember the Lodge at LeConte having as many cabins but it was a somewhat familiar sight and comforting after the arduous climb up. We passed the Lodge and went on to the shelter where we set out our sleeping bags and hoisted our back packs high in the air on pulleys. Mike explained that it was to keep temptation far away from the bears and to keep the food away from the shelter (which I noticed right away had no front on it). What was to keep the bears from entering the shelter itself, I asked. Mike shrugged and said we needed to get some water at the Lodge. Evasion at its best and probably a good idea since it was my first experience in a shelter!

 

We visited the Lodge itself and I proudly bought a tee-shirt. We looked at all the neat old pictures on the walls of the lodge, and sat outside in the weathered rocking chairs. Mike visited with a guy he recognized from his work. We left there and walked the short distance to Cliff Tops overlook. The view was obstructed by the clouds that were swirling and drifting along the mountain side. We heard the call of an animal, probably a deer, coming from another ridge. Small, gray birds hopped around us, canvassing the rocks for tasty bug bites. It was eerie and fantastic high in the clouds, sitting on a rock ledge in the mist.

 

We returned to the shelter and boiled water for our pasta and cheese. It never tasted so good washed down with grape kool-aid! More people had arrived at the shelter. We ended up with 10 people, including ourselves and there are 12 sleeping “slots.” It was pretty full. There was a guide with 2 boys from a summer camp. They were in their 4^th week and starting on a 4 day hike. It was interesting to hear where everyone was from and why they were there. The shelter is an intimate place with absolutely no privacy so it’s a bonus if you can get along well with others!

 

Before we had our meal, a member of the park service showed up and asked how everyone was and invited us to join the group at the Lodge for an 8pm hike to Cliff Tops to see the sunset. He reminded us about not having food in the shelter and told us a yearling bear was around and very curious about everything. He said it had even broken into a latrine and cracked open the hand sanitizer! The two young boys were very interested in the bear and wanted to see it. I shuddered as I envisioned its snout rooting around my earlobes in the middle of the night.

 

It probably got down to 55 degrees during the night. There was a half moon that Mike said lit up the ground. I had my sleeping bag over my head so I missed that part. There were no mice (they are apparently infamous to shelter existence), and no bears (that I was ever aware of).

 

The next morning dawned warm with the lazy hum of bees and flies getting an early start. We had missed the sunrise at Myrtle Point so Mike fixed me a cup of coffee and we packed our stuff and headed toward the trail. I looked back at the shelter and noticed the sleepy bundles of the trail guide and the 2 boys still nestled in their sleeping bags. They would need the rest to carry them for the next 3 days of their journey.

 

The trip back was much quicker and friendlier, despite one brush with a curious black bear that had already frightened a pair of hikers ahead of us. “I don’t want to alarm you,” the man called to us, “but there’s a sizable black bear just above you! Keep walking!” I didn’t feel too alarmed as I didn’t hear it crashing towards us in a threatening manner. (I once had a close encounter with a bear, standing in the middle of the trail, on a previous hike.) We stopped next to the two hikers who had alerted us and looked back at the bear. There it was, walking through the underbrush just a few feet above the trail. Mike said there was supposed to be one bear for every acre of land in the mountains. He said you would think you’d be running across them all the time. I figure they probably just don’t like us very much.

 

The clouds and haze had lifted to reveal mountain peaks as far as the eye could see. The beautiful, wooded mountains of the Smoky Mountains are a sight to see on a clear morning. I stood humbled and reverent at the sheer magnitude of the view before me. I swallowed hard. I want to see that again, good Lord willing, and “if the creek don’t rise” as they say around here. I will be back.