A Fine November Day (in December) Part 1 of 4

 

Sometimes November just hangs around for two or three extra weeks, all the way up to Christmas, giving us a few, delicious weeks of sharp, blue skies and mild temps for cutting one more rick of firewood, raking the last of the leaves, or taking a glorious stroll in the mountains. While cutting wood and raking leaves are pleasant enough activities, they are both “work” by any reasonable definition, so I opted for the mountains, which can be work, but only in the very best sense of the word. And besides, I’d been acting like a well-adjusted grown-up for several weeks in a row, and I’d had just about all I could stand.

One benefit of a November hike – especially if it happens in mid-December – is the deep, deep blue sky. I imagine folks who live in the Rockies are used to those blue skies that are so crisp they look like they could shatter because there’s not much humidity to muddy up the atmosphere and the views, but here in the East we have to wait for fall and winter for our sky to change from white to blue.

An added benefit of a cold weather hike is that if you can spend the day on a south-facing slope, you can add 10 or even 20 degrees to the temperature… as long as you stay in the sunshine. For example, much of Alum Cave trail is on the south-facing slope of Mount LeConte, but there’s also a lot of deep shade. So you can stroll pleasantly along in the warmth of the sun on an ice-free trail, only to walk into the shade of a spruce grove and find yourself slipping and sliding on an icy patch 10 or 20 or 100 feet long. If you do this enough, you get used to it and take it for granted. But then the day comes when a friend of yours is looking at the pictures of your December LeConte hike, and they innocently ask why you are wearing spikes on your boots but only a T shirt with no jacket. The incongruity of spikes and a T shirt has never occurred to you, but it really is an odd combination that makes sense only to those who hike on south-facing slopes in the late fall. (Of course, you’ll explain to your friend that the top of LeConte is cold and windy and your jacket is in your day pack. You’ll definitely need it when you get to the top.)

So as our schedules opened up in mid-December, Greg Harrell and I decided to do an off-trail trip up Styx Branch on the south-facing slope of Mount LeConte. We love the name Styx because it gives the impression of a dangerous, deadly, one-way journey filled with dragons, demons, fire, weeping, and gnashing of teeth. To make things even better, the general area where Styx Branch flows is called Huggins Hell. Names like that are like a flashing neon sign begging us to visit.

For purposes of full disclosure, I might as well admit up front that the names Styx and Hell are creative hyperbole generated by an over-active imagination, or something like that. The story goes that a guy named Huggins got lost in the thick rhododendron hell in this Styx Branch watershed. One version of the story says he emerged three days later, exhausted and near-death. The other version says he never emerged and was never found. I just can’t bring myself to believe any of it. The only person who could truly get lost up there is a delicate city-slicker who has no idea what he’s doing. If Huggins was a local resident who got lost, all he needed to do was find a ravine with some trickling water, and follow it down to the main river, which led to the homes and farms of Sugarlands and eventually to Gatlinburg. The whole process of getting from the rhododendron-infested slopes of LeConte to Sugarlands would take 3 or 4 hours. I suppose Huggins could have slipped on a rock and broken his leg or neck, in which case he died not because he was lost but because he was clumsy, or just plain unlucky. [To be continued]

The LeConte Trip, Day 2 of 3

 

 

One year on our annual, winter “LeConte Trip,” I went to bed at dusk and just couldn’t get warm. I tossed and turned and struggled all night, dozing fitfully, keenly aware of my chilled body parts. Finally, after a long, restless night I awoke to the sound of voices. Two of my partners were standing at the head of the bunks, discussing the impending uphill hike to Mt. LeConte. My spirits soared. I had survived the long, cold night! I began to crawl out of my bag to eat breakfast. It seemed a bit dark, but I was ready to get going. That’s when I noticed that these guys were taking their boots off. I watched as they unzipped their sleeping bags and crawled in. They were going to bed! It was 8:30 pm, and I had been in my sleeping bag about 2 hours. Morning hadn’t come, and as best I can remember, it never did.

 

That all happened at the Icewater Spring shelter. The next day we hiked on the Boulevard trail to the Mt LeConte shelter, where we spent the second night. There’s a cozy lodge on top of Mt. LeConte with a central dining hall and sitting area. There are several small cabins with beds, mattresses, pillows, and linens. Supplies are carried in via helicopters and lamas. It’s not luxurious, but it’s rustic and comfortable. And, most importantly, it’s not where you stay on a backpacking trip to LeConte.

 

Backpackers stay in a three-sided rock and mortar shelter with hard wooden bunk beds. Did you catch the part about three sides? The front is open to the elements, and in January in the Smokies there are a lot of unfriendly elements, cold wind being at the top of the list, right above black bears and skunks. Of course, that’s why you are backpacking in the Smokies in January. You are doing it to prove something to yourself, to your backpacking partners, and to your frail acquaintances back home. They don’t have what it takes. You do. At least, that’s what you keep telling yourself. Otherwise, sleeping in the cold and snow on top of a mountain in January begins to seem like a stupid idea.

 

Mount LeConte is a big, dominant mountain covered mostly by virgin forest. It’s either the tallest mountain in the park, or the third tallest, depending on how you want to measure it. If you start at sea-level, it’s the third tallest at 6,593 – that’s 50 feet shorter than Clingmans Dome. If you start at the base of the mountain, it’s the tallest, rising 5,300 feet from its base. In fact, measured this way, it’s the tallest mountain in the eastern US. Whenever I’m on the top of LeConte, it doesn’t bother me that two other mountains in the park are higher than I am. If you are the obsessive-compulsive type then such details might keep you awake at night, so you’d be better off driving to Clingmans Dome and making the half mile hike on the paved trail (along with the hundreds of other people) to the top, just to say you’ve been on the highest mountain in the park. I know I shouldn’t do this… but you O-C folks need to remember that there are two other peaks in the eastern US outside the park that are taller than Clingmans Dome. There, let that fact keep you awake.

 

LeConte is about 30 miles south of Jefferson City, as the crow flies. I can’t see it from my house, but there are several locations nearby from which it is clearly visible. Or, I should say, it’s clearly visible on a cool, crisp, clear day. From May through September the air is usually too warm and hazy to see it, but during cool weather it stands in the distance as a pleasant reminder that life is still good because there are mountains nearby.

 

To get a good look at it, go to picnic area at Cherokee Dam on a cool day and look to the south, directly over Jefferson City (in line with the double water towers). LeConte has a distinctive shape to it – a broad, ridgetop about 1½ miles long with three or four or five humps (depending on how you define “hump”). The main humps are West Point, Cliff Top, High Top, and Myrtle Point, some of which are popular spots to watch sunrises or sunsets. [To be continued.]

 

 

The LeConte Trip, Day 1 of 3

The coldest I’ve ever been in my life was on the Boulevard Trail leading five miles from the Appalachian Trail to the top of Mount LeConte. I was a novice backpacker in my early 20s, and while I wasn’t completely ignorant, I still didn’t know the nuances of winter backpacking – such as, moisture from sweat is just as dangerous and uncomfortable as moisture from rain and snow. I don’t think GoreTex had been invented yet, but even if it had, I probably wouldn’t have understood what all the excitement was about, but even if I did, I couldn’t have afforded it. In fact, I still can’t afford it, but there’s one big difference – now, I buy it anyway. My kids can pay for their own college education.

My feet had been numb since the previous evening at Icewater Spring shelter, and they were still numb as my three hiking partners and I waded through calf-deep snow toward the top of Mt. LeConte. I was wearing blue jeans and leather boots and had plastic bread bags on my feet, over my socks thinking they would keep my socks and feet dry. This was the trip on which the realities of moisture, condensation, sweat, and cold temperatures all became clear to me. I was the mule, and the wet socks and feet were the two by four that finally got my attention.

We were all unprepared and miserable, but of course that simply reminded us of how masculine we all were, so it was well worth it. In fact, we were all so thoroughly miserable that we made this an annual event. From this moment on, this route would come to be called The LeConte Trip, fully deserving of the capital letters. Every fall, as we’d begin thinking ahead to winter, one of us would suggest The LeConte Trip as our winter excursion, and we’d all pause, remember the cold and fatigue, and nod our heads in agreement. We repeated this adventure several more times until life’s obligations separated our little backpacking fraternity.

For the next several Januarys we’d park at Newfound Gap and hike 3 miles to Icewater Spring shelter for the first night. Before going to bed for the night, we would hike the one mile to Charlies Bunion and scramble around on the rocks, enjoying the view and basking in the knowledge that we were all manly outdoor types who were just a little superior to all those sissies in hotels in Gatlinburg.

Now one problem with winter backpacking is not just the cold. It’s the early bedtime. That might sound like a good thing, but it’s not. It gets dark around 5 or 6 pm, and it’s generally too cold to sit around and talk or play cards. (There’s virtually no firewood around these backcountry shelters. Plenty of trees, but no dead and down, and therefore legal, wood.) By 6 pm you are in your sleeping bag, eating gorp (good ol’ raisins & peanuts) to stoke your metabolism, and praying that morning will come soon.

It never does.

The bunks are hard. Your face sticking out of your sleeping bag is cold. And then you realize you didn’t drink enough during the day. You reach down around your feet to dig out your water bottle. You keep it in your sleeping bag so it won’t freeze. You drink and eat gorp and then drink some more.

Then you have to pee.

Most folks just get up and go. A few others somehow wait until morning. There’s even a theory out there that your body uses more calories keeping your bladder at 98.6 degrees than it does to get up, walk out of the shelter, stand in the snow, get chilled in the process, and crawl back into your bag and try to get warm by doing isometrics. As the theory goes, calorie-wise and warmth-wise, you should get up and go. Personally, I believe that debate fills a much needed gap in the literature of backpacking. I just haven’t reached that level of insight and sophistication. I follow the same rule that I follow in my non-backpacking life: when you need to go, just go.

Anyway, morning never comes... and I have proof.  [To be continued.]