Hi Ed,

Hope all is well after the hurricanes.  Here's a little on our first, and second, trip to LeConte.  Thanks for the inspiration leading in to our trip.

On October 6th 2004, at approximately 8:10 a.m. my wife, 2 sons (ages 8 & 9) and I hit the Alum Cave trail for our first trip to Mt. LeConte.  We've been to Alum Cave twice before, but never ventured past, today will be different.  With our sons taking turns as leader, we set off at a good pace.  We set "Inspiration Point" as our first stop.  I must say though, I was disappointed to find graffiti at this beautiful juncture.  Apparently, a young couple thought that the rest of society wanted to read of the matrimonial arrangements that they had made at this point. This was done by digging a small indentation behind a bush and placing a hand made plaster and gemstone plaque announcing their marriage proposal. (The following day I reported this and was assured that it will be removed).  We made Alum Cave in about 1 1/2 hours. Hmmm, that handrail wasn't there in April...... Now the fun begins.

We had been warned of narrow passages with handrails, and steep drop offs, and to watch the boys. So we put them in the middle and my wife took the lead (or was I just leading from the back?).  We stop several times to enjoy the views.  We met one hiker, on his way down, who informed us of the rare clear day we are about to partake in.  Sure enough, around 11:30 we get to the Lodge and we could see forever.  The fall colors were close to being at their peak, and although not a religious man, I thanked my God for the wonderful view and being able to enjoy it with my family.  We lunched at one of the picnic tables and refilled our water bottles.  The bays even got to see the lamas today.  We then headed up to "Mountain Tops" for more spectacular views. On the trip down, we were able to enjoy the views we missed on the way up. We arrived back at the parking lot around 4:00, joyous of the day we had and began planning our second trip up.

On the 7th we took an easy day to Cherokee and a short 4 mile hike and on the 8th we did Ramsey's Cascade.  We made Ramsey's in 2 hours and 15 minutes and began to wonder which was more difficult, Ramsey's or LeConte. Since we had a day separating the 2 hikes, we felt that it was too difficult to compare them, so we decided that we should do LeConte the next day.  On our second trip up to LeConte, we knocked about 1/2 hour off our first time.  Hey, we're from the Chicago area, a 6 inch curb is considered an elevation gain around here.  We realized on our first trip up, that although warned about the steep drop offs, they still don't compare to some of the places we've hike our boys through in Colorado and Utah with no handrails, and let them lead the trip.  Don't get me wrong, we still made sure that the exercised caution, especially since today was a little wet and the rocks potentially more slippery.  We were greeted at the top with weather more suitable to the season; cold, damp, overcast, and windy.  We still didn't consider this a bad day. After all, we had a GREAT view on our first trip, we were up on top, we were NOT at work, and we were having another GREAT family day together.  We had lunch in the office building and warmed up a bit. We also got to read the article that was up in there of a guy who made over 1,000 trips up to LeConte.  "Hey, that's the guy who's web site I've been on all week, and who's been getting me all excited about making it up here!"  The nice part about today's weather, is that it brought a lot of the hikers indoors together to share experiences and camaraderie.  The colors on the way down proved even more vibrant then three days earlier.  On a side note, the Rangers did remove the plaque. Thanks for restoring the trail.

Now we wait for Spring and at least one more trip to LeConte.

Ron Zaremba