June 25, 2020

Good Morning,

Going to be a wet and cloudy Thursday. Conditions have us socked in with intermittent rain showers expected for much of the day. Temps maintain their hold on the 50s. Forecast improves for leading into the weekend, with storms rolling through for the back half. Should be plenty hot down below, so what better way to beat the heat than to climb up high where it’s been nice and cool?

As the Trails Forever crew continues to make great gains on improvements to Trillium Gap, we’re staggering our llama pack trips accordingly. We’re looking at several visits by our favorite fuzzy friends in the coming days.

A bit of trivia for you...countless visitors to Mt. LeConte track how many summits they make in their lifetime. In fact, if you’ve never seen it, there is a logbook in our office for hikers to register their hike they made that day. Past logbooks are kept in secure storage and go back many decades. Of course, there are plenty of people out there with hundreds and possibly thousands of summits who don’t keep track of their personal number, and that’s okay too. What is known is that there are very few people who have climbed this mountain more than most of our pack llamas through the years. Our recently retired and longest serving packer, Clifford Cliff Tops, probably surpassed 800 summits in his illustrious career with the lodge. And that’s averaging 40-60 lbs. of supplies on his back per trip as well. Just one more thing to think about when you marvel at the impressive work these critters do week to week!