July 6, 2014

Good afternoon to all of you.  We're putting the bookend on our Independence Day weekend on top of LeConte tonight with our annual crew progressive dinner.  After we serve our guests supper, we'll wander around to all the crew cabins and sample different dishes prepared by crew members.   I'll let Allyson write more about it tomorrow if she chooses, but it's always one of the most anticipated events of the season for the crew.  We shine up our rooms and roll out the welcome mat for each other, ending the night happy and fulfilled.

We've enjoyed another pretty day up on LeConte.  The high temperature was 65 with a low of 45, just about perfect.  We notched our fifth consecutive day without measurable rainfall, an eternity during a LeConte summer.

It occurred to me that I've written from time to time about the Huffs, the first family of LeConte.  However, I've given Paul Adams, the creator of the first camp on LeConte, the short end of the stick.  Today I'm going to relate Paul Adams' story of his first supply trip up LeConte to build a camp.  This account comes from Adams' book, Mt. LeConte, published in 1966.

Even before the Huffs, Paul Adams got the assignment to carve out our slice of paradise on top of Mt. LeConte in 1925.

"It was on the morning of July 13, 1925 when four of us started packing supplies to LeConte to start the camp that has remained to this day," Adams recalled.  In the first supply trip, the pioneers hauled up a tent, two blankets each, utensils, food for three meals, a rifle, six-foot crosscut saw, double-bit axe and a 10-pound sledge.  All of those items seemed like good, practical ideas to me.  Oddly enough, Adams chose to bring up a typewriter on the second supply trip.

All of it was certainly hard work as he toiled to build what would become LeConte Lodge.  However, it appears that his heart was in the task whole-hog.  "Before I slept, I thanked God for having lived this very happy day," Adams said of his thoughts on his first night on the mountain.

For his second night's supper, Adams feasted on fried squirrel, boiled potatoes, fresh green beans, sawdust gravy, bread and coffee.  You can still find derivations of some of those things on tonight's guest menu (don't hold your breath waiting for squirrel).  They have their genesis in the past, when Paul Adams blazed a trail to LeConte.

Allyson has returned from her off days, so I'll be turning updates over to her for a while.  To all of you who came up to see us recently, thank you.  Thanks to all of you for reading.  Happy trails.