The LeConte Trip, Day 3 of 3

 To tell you the truth, on our winter trips to Mt. LeConte  I rarely walked to Myrtle Point or Cliff Top to see a LeConte winter sunrise or sunset, partly because I was cold and tired, partly because I had explored LeConte’s ridgetop during other seasons, but mainly because winter hiking in the Smokies provides so many great views, I just didn’t feel the need to walk to one of LeConte’s extremities to see another. I’d have been doing it just to say I’d done it, and that’s something I quit doing several years ago when I realized that I wasn’t going to do anything in life so rare and fabulous that I’d be able to impress folks with the tale of my achievement. Now I just hike or fish or whatever if it’s something that I’ll enjoy or learn from. Besides, all the really good stuff has already been done – first man on the moon, first person to climb Everest, first person to hike the entire AT. Just thumb through any Book of World Records to see all the stupid, pointless activities that people are pursuing, just to say they’ve done it – balancing spinning plates on poles, eating hot dogs, burping the alphabet. I just paused and visited a world records website. Did you know that a guy ate 36 cockroaches in less than one minute to break the old record? How do you practice for something like that?

After our night on LeConte, we always hiked back down to the main road via Alum Cave Trail. This is a very popular trail, and for good reason. It’s one of the best, most varied, most dramatic trails in the park. A lot of people who hike up this trail get only as far as Alum Cave, an impressively large, rock theatre about half way up this five mile trail. It’s a nice spot, but those who stop here miss the best part of this trail.  If you do this hike, don’t turn around at Alum Cave. Make the commitment to go all the way to the top. While you are on the top, visit Cliff Top and Myrtle Point. Trust me on this one.

My favorite part of Alum Cave Trail on our winter trips was that it’s all downhill. My second favorite part is the section of trail that’s cut into a vertical cliff. There’s a hand cable bolted into the rock. The trail is about two or three feet wide and the drop-off to your right is steep and long. It’s awesome, if you don’t slip on the ice that inevitably covers it in January. No, actually the risk is precisely what makes it awesome. Just don’t let go of the cable.

Also awesome are the views from LeConte, from Charlies Bunion, and from Alum Cave Trail. It was on one of these LeConte Trips that we began experimenting with various, colorful adjectives to describe these views. I won’t go into the lurid details. Let’s just say “Boys will be boys” and leave it at that.  

Just so you won’t get the wrong impression, we also discussed a lot of politics and theology, too. We were still trying to figure out why the world was so screwed up and where we stood in it. Over thirty years later, I’m still wrestling with many of the same questions. I’d like to get all mystical here and say that a few days in the Smokies will clear your head and help you to understand reality and your place in the universe. Unfortunately, that never quite happened to me. My time in the Smokies has been a mixture of fatigue, relaxation, meditation, and education. It’s been fine fellowship with some good friends. In some sense, it is always a spiritual time, and I have had some epiphanies, but nature hasn’t given me the answers to life’s great questions.

Maybe that’s all you can expect from the Smokies, but for me that’s enough.