Good afternoon. I hope you have an enjoyable weekend in store. Things are looking mighty nice up on top of LeConte again--beautiful night for stargazing last night and another fine morning. I think this has been our nicest weather week since probably late April or May. I hope you get a chance to come up and enjoy it.
Thursday's high reached 70 degrees with a low of 46. We didn't record any precipitation. The forecast for the weekend looks favorable. Keep in mind that the lower parking lot at the Alum Cave Bluff trailhead is closed for repairs, so spots in the recently renovated upper lot will be at a premium. I'm hoping for a little audience participation regarding today's topic. I'd like to hear either the most interesting place you've worn your LeConte Lodge t-shirt or the most far-flung place you've encountered someone else wearing LeConte gear. We've made a change to the "Guest sightings" page on High on LeConte (the third heading to the right of this "Daily Posts" page). Instead of taking photos of guests with the same background of the dining room sign, we thought it may be more interesting to see where in the world you were wearing your LeConte Lodge gear. Instructions for submitting the photos can be found on our "Guest sightings" page. However, take your time in sending those in because Allyson won't have a chance to post those until late next week. We already have a few folks sporting LeConte gear in Norway, Sweden and a little closer to home in Auburn, Ala. As for me, the most far-flung LeConte encounter I had was in Antarctica. I worked there to close out the 2012 austral summer season at McMurdo Station, the largest research station on the continent. I was attending an end of the season church service at the on-base chapel overlooking the ice shelf. At the service, the chaplain and priest offered up prayers for all the people leaving the Ice preparing to scatter across the world in their redeployment home. In addition, prayers were said for the hardy souls who would winter over on the Ice during a long stretch of complete darkness and isolation. At the service, I was wearing a LeConte Lodge fleece jacket which the crew received at our end-of-season party in 2010. The chaplain there asked if that "LeConte Lodge" was the same one in the Great Smoky Mountains. Turns out this chaplain was normally stationed at the air base next to Knoxville's McGhee-Tyson Airport. The world gets smaller all the time. Also, just this past winter when I was a winter guide in Yellowstone National Park, I drove my snow coach to the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel to pick up my guests for touring the park that day. While looking for my guests, I noticed a woman standing in the lobby wearing a LeConte Lodge shirt from 2012. We struck up a nice conversation about her day hike up LeConte last year. I look forward to reading about your LeConte encounters. This will be the last High on LeConte update until Tuesday, as Allyson and I both have off days scheduled for this weekend. Happy trails. Good afternoon to everyone. So far September hasn't disappointed as we've enjoyed another beautiful morning on top of LeConte. We found ourselves periodically enveloped in a cloud yesterday afternoon, but didn't record a drop of precipitation. Wednesday's high topped out at 67 with a low of 47. All in all, it's been a nice couple of days on the mountain, and we're hoping for more.
We're in the reign of the new moon now on top of LeConte. I appreciate the way the full moon rises near High Top and makes all of camp glow. When the full moon first begins to top the mountain, it illuminates all the dead trees still holding on near the summit of LeConte--looking like beard stubble on top of venerable old Smoky. However, I'm becoming an equal fan of the beautiful dark sky offered up by the new moon. Mt. LeConte on a clear night is a wonderful place to contemplate the Milky Way. The galaxy was on full display Wednesday night. Last night after chores were completed, I laid out on one of the picnic tables at the lodge and just looked up to take it all in before I called it a day. One of the first things I noticed was that although I was done for the day, the bats were working overtime scouring the skies for a decreasing number of insects as cooler weather approaches. Looking a bit beyond, if you squint just right, you can see satellites zipping across the night sky. I always wonder what their assignment might be--spying on one of our neighbors or maybe the important business of beaming "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" into televisions across the land. My favorite night scene from yesterday was tracking two shooting stars across the sky. One was headed north, the other headed west, but neither using Interstate 75 or 40. I hope you get a chance to enjoy a beautiful night sky during this new moon. Happy trails. Hello to all of you. This is Nathan, and I'll be filling in for Allyson for a few days while she takes some days off. We didn't have an update yesterday because Allyson and I were both off, which will happen again this weekend (Saturday through Monday). Beginning next Tuesday, barring any unusual circumstances, one of us will be on LeConte the remainder of the season to provide you updates on lodge news.
Knoxville hosted its massive Boomsday fireworks celebration Sunday night. Our guests on LeConte had to wait until early Tuesday morning for their fireworks spectacular. Although I was off the mountain, the crew told me that Mother Nature provided a magnificent lightning storm about 5 a.m. Tuesday which rendered alarm clocks pointless. Once the storm subsided, Tuesday turned out to be a pretty nice day with a high of 64, low of 47 and 0.02 inches of rain. When the sun goes down there's certainly a chill in the air up top, so make sure you pack appropriately if you're coming up to see us. Wednesday morning has been lovely all the way around. The biggest item to report today was a surprise to us. The construction crew working on the upper parking lot at the Alum Cave Bluff trailhead finished its work earlier than expected. Therefore, the upper parking lot at Alum is now open. However, the flipside to that early completion is that the construction crew moved up its timetable to work on the lower parking lot at Alum Cave Bluff trailhead. The lower (and larger) lot is closed effective immediately and should be reopened by Oct. 1. I visited with a supervisor overseeing this project for the Park Service after I parked in the upper lot Tuesday afternoon. He said that no parking lot work was to be done during the October rush of leaf watchers. The lower lot was originally scheduled to be closed for work during November, after the crowds seeking leaf color have abated somewhat. However, the crew has a maximum of three weeks to finish the lower lot project, which could still be completed before the first of October target date. Therefore, they decided to work ahead. I traveled Tuesday from the Gatlinburg bypass to the Alum Cave Bluff trailhead and have never seen so much road construction in the park. I didn't get held up by it much, just a minute or two here and there. It's apparent the road crews are working hard to get everything they can completed before fall brings us a multitude of visitors to the majestic Smokies. September is a little bit slower month on LeConte, and I find it vastly underrated. In September, the family crowds of summer have been beckoned home by a new school year and the army of leaf watchers doesn't get mobilized until October. While the weather this summer has been unique, typically in September the skies over the mountain begin to dry, escorting some beautiful days of fall visibility up top while the folks in the valley are still dealing with hot days and haze. That's all the better reason for you to come up and see us. Happy trails. Sunday was a wishy washy kind of day. We started with clouds that turned into a bright blue sky. A few hours later, we were experiencing thunder storms, which quickly changed back to blue skies. We finished off the day with more rain and a thick layer of clouds hanging low on the mountain. The high was 62º with a low of 52º. The crew had a fun night of grilling out and celebrating only 90 days left of the season. It has been a tough summer with all of the rain and they have done a spectacular job in not letting it get to them. Usually, September brings bright blue skies and fall like temperatures.
Well, it is going to be hard to beat yesterday's post, but we did get some sunshine. The clouds were in and out for most of the day. The high was 69º with a low of 54º. It wasn't until I went to bed that we started seeing signs of the storm off in the distance. It looked like Knoxville was getting quite a storm. Chris said it looked like a strobe light. The trend is continuing this morning. We are currently socked in. I did hear there is a 65% chance of rain, so I am imagining we will get some showers at some point today.
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LeConte LodgeWelcome to the official blog of LeConte Lodge. We hope you find the information provided here both helpful and enjoyable. Thank you for visiting the site, and we hope to see you on the mountain! Archives
March 2024
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