 Good afternoon to you. We've struck another beautiful day on LeConte. Saturday turned out to be mostly cloudy, but Sunday's been more a repeat of a stunning Friday. From the lodge, you can look across the valley and see the ridgeline of the Cumberland Mountains. This weekend has been the busiest one yet in October, which is one of LeConte Lodge's prime months.
Saturday's high reached 44 with an overnight low of 28. Occasionally yesterday a light mist floated around the lodge, but it only accounted for 0.03 inches of rain. However, some of it did freeze on the trees of LeConte's summit, making for some spectacular scenery when the sun rose. Most days LeConte isn't exactly the world epicenter of news, but there are a few things to mention today. First of all, we've had reports of the Rainbow Falls Trail washing down to a narrow strip with a dropoff. I'm sure last week's heavy rains exacerbated that trail issue. The Park Service is aware of that washout and a large tree across the trail. Secondly, there's been increased bear activity on Bullhead Trail. Please make sure you use good bear etiquette on all the trails. The next note should remind all about the importance of preparation, especially as the days get shorter and colder. A family of six, including four small children, ended up spending a cold, windy night out on the Bullhead Trail last night. They weren't expected at the lodge, and the Park Service didn't learn about the situation until the middle of the night. They intended to do the Bullhead/Rainbow Falls loop yesterday in a dayhike (which would be an awfully tough 13.5 miles for youngsters anyway), but started way too late in the day to accomplish that feat safely. They didn't have lights or cold weather gear and spent the night out in the elements, looking pretty miserable when they reached our care. After making a 911 call last night, during which their cell phone battery died without mentioning their exact location, Park Rangers were dispatched from their beds to trace the two most likely routes. When they were located about 7:15 a.m. about a mile from the lodge, the rangers asked us if they could hike the entire group up to the lodge for stabilization and evaluation. We warmed them, fed them, pumped some hot chocolate into them and let them borrow some of the crew's dry clothes. Later, the family was able to hike down in the company of the rangers. This tale had a happy ending, but with even slightly worse weather conditions could have been a recovery rather than a rescue. LeConte can be a tough place anytime, but winter weather is especially hard on little ones and the elderly. I'd also like to thank the Park Service for doing a fine job with the rescue. We have different bosses (LeConte Lodge crew members are not federal employees), but we pride ourselves on working well together to take care of people in the middle of a hard day (or night). A job well done to the responding rangers. Happy trails.
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 So much for not drinking the water on the mighty Nile River in Uganda. I'm the last person you can barely see before the rapid swallowed us. On this Class IV rapid, we managed to stay in the boat. On another, we experienced a forced rehydration and took a pretty interesting swim down the Nile. Hello to all of you. I hope you're enjoying a wonderful autumn weekend. We've seen far more clouds than sun thus far Saturday, though the forecast is favorable for LeConte Lodge and I've heard it's pretty down below. However, there's been no precipitation today or yesterday for that matter. The beautiful sun pushed us up to a high of 55 Friday. The overnight low sank to 35 degrees. We've already seen a healthy influx of dayhikers in addition to our full house of overnight guests Saturday. I expect this October weekend will be busier than the previous two this month. Yesterday I tried to answer a few questions from guests about the length of our season and offseason. Today, I'll fill you in about what I'm planning for this winter, and what I got into last offseason. In early December, I'm planning on heading back to Yellowstone National Park for my third season (two winters as a guide and snowcoach driver and one summer as a horse wrangler). Like the Smokies, Yellowstone is a world-class treasure any time of year, but the winters are tough on a bald man. My favorite animal of all, the bison, is still in residence during the winter. As a snowcoach guide/driver you have to be careful to avoid piles of frozen bison manure hidden on the snow road. On a frigid Yellowstone morning, those piles freeze hard enough to bend the axles on your snow treads if you're not being wary. I'm looking forward to it, but also recall my last offseason fondly when the temperature was decidedly warmer. Last winter I traveled to Uganda to do some volunteer work and visit with local folks in a part of Africa most tourists never see. I purposefully wanted to avoid prepackaged tours, so I independently set up a volunteer stay with a local man in Mbale, Uganda who is a radio DJ (a pretty good gig in Uganda). He's a funny character who knows everyone in the city and can set you up to help out where your interest leads you. I split my weeks volunteering with three different efforts. My favorite was working with a farmer who is branching out into raising Arabica coffee as a cash crop. This farmer has three kids and struggles mightily to afford sending them to primary school. He taught me most of the ins and outs of picking and processing his coffee without machinery. I'd volunteer my time, and the money he made from selling the coffee helped pay school fees for his kids. I loved working at the farm. The coffee work was quite labor intensive, but not brutally difficult. I could pick the ripe beans, smash the hulls and prepare them for drying on an old feed sack under the East African sun. When dry, I would wrap up the beans in a feed sack and repeatedly pummel them with a wood stick until I separated the papery husks from the bean. We would sit outside under the mango tree sorting out the good "green" beans suitable for roasting. The others we'd flick off the table for the chickens to eat. I'd collect kindling on the farm and start a fire in the mud cooking hut to roast the beans in a steel pot, stirring with a wooden spoon to determine medium or dark roast. For lunch break we'd eat bananas, or even better yet, the farmer would climb 25 feet up in his avocado tree and pluck one big as your head--best I've ever eaten. We'd eat the avocado with a little salt and mix our coffee I'd just roasted and ground with homegrown ginger root and lemongrass. I also visited HIV patients who were struggling to regain their health, lives and jobs after tough battles. I'd go to the market and buy them fruit for nutrition (you could buy a pineapple, two or three mangoes and some oranges for about $2 U.S.). The visits weren't medical in nature, though the fruits offered valuable nutrition. I'd visit the patients in their mud-brick homes, and we'd sit around and swap stories. Two of my patients loved playing a Ugandan card game. They had met in the HIV clinic, had four kids (none of them HIV positive) and taken on their struggling neighbor's child to raise, too. On the day of my last visit before I returned home, they found a different neighbor stabbed to death, and they, just like my American parents would have, didn't sleep well the night before and held their kids a little tighter. A different patient was the equivalent of a moonshiner, though her "local alcohol" was legal. She'd make it out of millet in a multistage process which included burying it in the ground for eight days. She was a delightful lady who'd lived a hard life. She had seven children, the youngest of which was also HIV positive and taken from her when she was bedridden for a time. She was feeling better, back to work even, but her youngest child still lived out in a different village and that absence ate at her. I'd help her carry the heavy mash buckets from the brewhouse to the shed where she served her customers. I'd always buy a little bit at the local rate to drink, too, while we played cards and covered the news of the neighborhood. I was quite the curiosity, as no one in that neighborhood had ever seen a white man working for an African woman. That local alcohol was served boiling hot, which was tough when the thermometer was pushing 95 degrees. I also visited a mud-walled school and would play with the kids one day a week. The kids were nice and would constantly touch my arms as they glistened with sunscreen because they'd never seen such a thing before. They never asked me to help teach English, though an Italian and Romanian I knew did help with that. When they heard me talk, they all assumed I was from Texas (which boils the blood of any true Tennessean). I tried to get out of town and see other things in the country during my weekends. I was able to see Sipi Falls after hitching a ride for $1 in the back of a flatbed dirt truck with 11 other Ugandans and a pleasant goat. I also whitewater rafted the headwaters of the mighty Nile River, getting dumped into the fiercest torrent I've ever seen (some of the class VI rapids we had to portage around). Our boat flipped, and I got sucked underwater about three times (figuring at least twice that LeConte Lodge would be hiring a new assistant manager while my body floated down to South Sudan). The rapids were such that I didn't get back to the boat for about 2/3 of a mile, and I kept looking pretty close for the eyes of the Nile crocodile welcoming me to the country. I was also able to take a poor man's safari trip during which I saw magnificent animals, including a hippopotamus standing on my porch eating grass which delayed my shower. The people all wanted to know about life in the U.S. Imagine how hard it is to explain LeConte Lodge to folks in Uganda with a completely different idea of America. "You walk five miles to work with no road. You don't have electricity or a bathroom in your house. In America?" They were interested to know that Mt. LeConte overlooked Dolly Parton's hometown. I heard Dolly's music several times booming out of hair salons and bars while walking around the streets of Mbale, which was quite a surprise. One last story, my last night in country was spent in a hostel in Kampala, the bustling capital city which I didn't like nearly as much as Mbale, where I worked. It was March 6, the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo, and I stopped by the bar to buy a Tennessee product to toast my fellow volunteers who paid such a dear price for Texas' independence in 1836. The bartender was a friendly fellow, and we visited about different things. Finally, he got comfortable enough to ask me about my t-shirt--a black shirt with an image of Johnny Cash backlit on the front. Pointing to Cash on my shirt, he asked "Is that Muammar Gaddafi?" Very quickly I said "No, that's Johnny Cash. He's passed away, but he was a great American country singer from my part of the country." The bartender replied, "Sure looks like Gaddafi." I reassured him, "No, certainly not Gaddafi. I'm no fan of Gaddafi. That's Johnny Cash, and he stood up for a lot of people down on their luck back home. Not Gaddafi." It's not a great idea to be walking around many parts of Africa with a hated dictator on your shirt. Thinking I had the situation cleared up I continued, "Cash is not Gaddafi, but, who knows, maybe Gaddafi had a good singing voice, too" and kind of laughed it off. The bartender replied, "No, he's just a dead dictator." It was a wonderfully rewarding, complicated and difficult trip. I saw things I can't forget--good and bad. Although I didn't exactly blend in with the populace physically, I was always well treated and think about the nice Ugandans I lived, shopped, worked, ate and visited with all the time. I think about them even more now, as I know they're scared about the Ebola epidemic even though it's far on the other side of the continent (Uganda is in East Africa). The world gets smaller all the time with unpredictable results. That's how my last offseason shaped up. I hope you can come up and visit LeConte Lodge before the crew begins the next offseason. Happy trails.  This is the mud cooking hut where I would roast the Arabica coffee beans over the fire when I was working at the family farm on the foothills of Mt. Wanale above Mbale, Uganda. 
Good afternoon from a sun-kissed LeConte Lodge. This is Nathan again filling in on the update. We've been paying our dues for a while with some less than stellar weather. However, the stars unexpectedly began to twinkle in the cold, clear air above us last night, and we knew good, old October weather was again waiting in the wings. Sunrise was beautiful, and the sun has yet to check out as of mid-afternoon.
We added 0.2 inches of rain to our October total and hovered in the narrow range of 39 to 33 degrees for our high and low. We'll be warmer than that Friday, however. Every couple of months I'll try to take one of the most commonly asked guest questions crew members receive and try to shed a little light on the answer during my High on LeConte posts. Today's answer deals with the length of the season and offseason. This season the LeConte Lodge crew hiked up on Friday, March 14 to take care of the preseason work of getting the lodge ready for business. We opened to overnight guests on Monday, March 24 this year. We stay open seven days a week until the day before Thanksgiving, Wednesday, Nov. 26 this year, when the crew hikes down for good and the LeConte winter caretaker begins. Lots of folks think the season is quite a bit shorter than it is, say May through October, and are surprised that we see snow on both bookends of the season. Other folks are surprised we close at all. Probably once a week I'll talk to someone who has never heard of the lodge and is quite surprised to stumble upon our "village" on top of Tennessee. That leaves about three and a half months of offseason before time to report for the next season on LeConte. "What do you do in the winter?" ranks among the most asked questions by guests, somewhere between "Where are the bathrooms?" and "Can I ride a llama back down the mountain?" Allyson earlier filled you in on some people's offseason plans. Some choose to catch their breath and take it easy during the winter. Working LeConte is a great adventure, but it's not relaxing. Others choose to return home to their families and catch up on lost time. Most of us need to pay bills, so we try to find a short-term assignment until time to hike up again. One of the most popular options is to save the season's wages and take a once-in-a-lifetime trip. I guess between the lodge staff and the llama wranglers we've set foot on all seven continents during the last decade's offseasons. On Saturday, unless plans change, I'll try to fill you in on my offseason plans and my last winter. A hint, one involves dodging frozen bison manure and the other involves having my shower delayed by a hippopotamus--both unlikely events on LeConte. The weather on LeConte is lovely. Come up and see us. Happy trails. 
The water rages just underneath the first footbridge near the Alum Cave Bluff Trail parking lot at 5:52 p.m. Tuesday.
Good afternoon to all of you High on LeConte readers. This is Nathan, patching in on today's update. We've been staring at a heaping helping of gray today above the top of Tennessee. Wednesday's high only reached 40 with an overnight low of 34. We've not budged much from that morning low, as we're reading about 37 degrees at 2 p.m. Thursday. We'd be dealing with a white carpet if the temperature had dropped another few degrees. We added another 0.41 inches of rain Wednesday to augment our soggy October. We received more rain Tuesday (officially 5.56 inches, but that total rises north of 6 inches if you count the total during the overnight hours) than we did in all of September, 5.42 inches. September down in the Tennessee Valley was historically dry. The folks in our office in Sevierville would like to remind you about our online store. Feel free to browse through and see what you might like. I feel certain that merchandise would look better on your back than in our storeroom. Plus, that may give you a few good Christmas shopping ideas and keep you out of the madness that is Black Friday. Maybe you could go hiking instead. In particular, the 2015 LeConte Lodge calendars are on sale. We'll still only sell the "I hiked it" shirts at the lodge to protect the people who made the journey. I'd like to thank the Park Service trail crew for doing a quick and thorough job clearing Alum Cave Bluff and Trillium Gap Trails to LeConte. The mountain took a beating in the rain and wind Tuesday, but the trail crew's made the hike much better for our guests. I don't have any updates on Boulevard, Rainbow Falls or Bullhead Trails. If you have an update on any of the above, feel free to share it. I hiked down last Friday in between bouts of bad weather. I got lucky, and the afternoon hike down Alum was nice. Below about 5,000 feet I started to see some welcome color on the foliage. In particular, there was a stretch of yellow leaves carpeting the trail, rendering the effect of the yellow-brick road from "The Wizard of Oz." Had I known the might of the wind that would soon howl across the mountain, the movie would have been an even better comparison. Also, I noticed the vibrant red of the sugar maple descending below Inspiration Point. Is there any tree more glorious than a maple in the fall? Looking out at the green, red, yellow and orange across the ridges reminded me of opening my wallet this winter in Uganda and all the colorful currency peaking back at me. The good, old U.S. dollar spends a lot better at the lodge, but it's not nearly as pretty as Ugandan currency. My trip back to work on Tuesday proved not quite so pleasant. The normally placid stream below Arch Rock on the Alum Cave Bluff Trail looked like Olympic-caliber Class V whitewater on the Ocoee River. I've never seen that trail so dangerous as when I began hiking near the conclusion of the downpours at 5:52 p.m. I didn't arrive at the lodge until 9 p.m. I couldn't believe the ferocity of the stream licking ever so close to the first two broad footbridges near the Alum Cave Bluff parking area. Once I crossed the second broad bridge, I was stunned to see that the stream had engulfed the entire trail. I had to plow through knee-high, churning, turbulent water for about 1/3 of a mile--guaranteeing my boots were about three times as heavy as they should have been for the remainder of my 5-mile hike. While I was wading through the section of trail so wet it could drown a trout, I heard an eerie sound. At first, it sounded like muffled thunder. However, it wasn't distant at all, but close and the weather was finally beginning to break. I figured out that the force of the main body of the stream was so powerful that the muffled clicking I heard was a host of boulders being shuttled down the creekbed crashing their way to new homes downstream. I've never been so close to turning around on a trip up to LeConte. Had I not had to report for work, been worried about finding guests in harm's way on the trail and wanted to provide the best reconnaissance for our overnight guests and trail crew, I would have turned around and faced LeConte another day. I was carrying about a 50-pound pack and had to squirrel through some of the limbs on those downed trees in the dark (I did have headlamps). I certainly appreciate the good work of the trail crew. I've attached some photos, but I still can't believe the fury of the water that day. Because we haven't seen the sun in quite some time, our solar power is just about gone. The forecast is improving, but we'll need some sun to recharge before we can post another update. If our LeConte Lodge battery power was an event in U.S. history, we would be standing beside Gen. George A. Custer on Last Stand Hill at Little Big Horn. Thanks for reading. Come up and see us. Happy trails. 
The water comes close to overtaking the logbridge approaching Arch Rock on Tuesday evening.
 A "dry" crossing about 300' below Leconte's summit yesterday. What a day we had yesterday! With unprecedented amounts of rain and wind, we might have done well to have had a sail boat to maneuver around camp. Our grand total rain accumulation was 6.57" for the whole day with winds gusting around 60 mph all through the day as well. For all of our guests who made it up, congratulations on a tough hike! I want to say a word of praise for anyone who made a good judgment call on not coming up as well - it is just as important to know your personal limits and to be able to see when a risk might out weigh the reward. The mountain will always be here for you to come and visit again later! Our high yesterday was 51 and all that weather blew in a cold front, dropping our temperature last night to a chilly 35. Anyone out and about in the mountains today, bring layers, especially if you are coming up to stay the night! Also, trails are probably a bit rough after yesterday, so exercise caution around downed trees and while crossing swollen stream crossings! Have a wonderful day, and I will leave you with the same photo i took yesterday, but only 3 hours later- Leconte Falls had evolved into a cascade!   Leconte Falls has been flowing steadily all day. Good afternoon, everybody!
Well, it seems the Winds of Doom have carried over from yesterday and brought along a ton of rain today. Since this morning we have already received over 2.2" of rainfall and the winds have been monumentally strong. The crew certainly had a time of it making beds this morning while trying not to be blown away by rouge 60 mph gusts catching a bed sheet and parachuting them up to Cliff Tops. The high and low yesterday danced close together, between 48 and 50. And while we only caught about half an inch of rain, most all of that was very late last night. There are both a high wind and a flood advisory in effect all day for the area, so if you are planning on getting out in it, please do so smartly and pack plenty of rain gear. Fallen trees are a big concern on the trails today! Also, I would personally advise against venturing up the Rainbow Falls trail today because many stream crossings will be dangerous as the rainfall accumulates on its way down the mountain. Ya'll stay safe and dry today!  Sorry for the delay in the post. We have been in a thick blanket of clouds all day. The rain has come and gone and the sun is finally trying to find its way to the mountain. The colors are beautiful in the lower elevations. We can see glimpses of reds and yellows from our back deck. The high yesterday was 53º with a low of 47º. It was socked in most of yesterday as well. It has been a wet October so far. This weather pattern is different from most of our Octobers on the mountain. If this continues we could be in for some snow as the temperatures start to drop again. I, personally, will be happy if I don't see any more snow until I get off this mountain. I don't think my wish is going to be granted. I guess it would benefit Ruthie to learn the snow routine while we are up here. She will have to watch the water system like a hawk to keep it from freezing. Chris tears down the water pump every night when we get freezing temperatures and then puts it together the next day. She will have to watch the large water tanks to keep them from freezing. The flushing toilets will get turned off and the kitchen sink has to run all night. This is on top of helping guests make it up the mountain. We usually have to go out at least one time a day to help guests make to the lodge when there is snow on the ground. Some times there are more than one trip out in the snow. When the day is done, all the guests are here and warm in their bed, we get to go to bed and wake up to do it all over again. The good think about the snow, it makes for some spectacular photographs. So, right now I will enjoy the beautiful colors on the trees and hope rain is the worst of it the weather until November 26th.
 The clouds rolled in yesterday afternoon and made themselves at home. We awoke to heavy cloud coverage this morning. We did see short downpours throughout the afternoon. The high yesterday was 62º with a low of 44º. I was amazed at how busy the mountain was considering the dreary weather. I would like to remind everyone, it starts getting dark around 7. Please adjust your hiking times accordingly. Make sure you have flashlights with you in case you are later coming off the mountain than you had planned. We are seeing a lot of hikers arrive at the top around 6 and they are not prepared for hiking off in the dark. Please, turn around if you are not making good time and are not an experienced hiker. I know a lot of folks out there have no problem hiking at night, and that is fine. I am sure those folks carry flashlights. Carry snacks, water, flashlight, rain gear, and layers of clothing. It is about 20º colder at the top. Get on the trail early and give yourself plenty of time to get down. Happy hiking and see you on the top.
 It was too cloudy to experience the blood moon the other evening, but we were treated to a beautiful October moon last night. It was the perfect ending to a picture perfect day. The staff was blown away at how far you can see on a extremely clear day. Do you all know how many states you can see from Myrtle Point on a clear day? Well, I will tell you. The answer is five. You can see Brass Town Bald in Georgia, Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina, Virgina, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
The temperatures were just as nice as the day was beautiful. The high was 57º with a low of 42º. It was great day for drinking hot cocoa while checking out the amazing views from our back porch. We saw a lot of hikers who had the same thought we did.  It was a splendid sunrise this morning. We were so happy to see some sky and not listen to the sound of rain drops on the roof. It is a great start to a beautiful October day on Mt. LeConte. The high yesterday was 51º with a low of 38º. Please remember to bring plenty of layers with you for when you get to the top. You will want some warm clothes to put on while you are hanging out around the heater in the office. You will also want to bring a hat and gloves if you plan on making the journey to Cliff Top for sunset. It can get a bit windy on the rocks.
We are starting to see some color in the lower elevations. If I had to guess a time for peak leaf viewing, I would guess the third week in October. I am not a professional peak leaf predictor, I am just going on my twelve years experience of watching the leaves change from the top of the mountain. Please don't hold me liable if it is earlier or later. When ever it falls, it is my favorite time in the Smokies. I love the cool, crisp, blue skies that October brings to the mountains. |
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
January 2025
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