Great Smoky Mountains Nat'l Park

On previous trips to the Smokies during family reunions or just driving through, we hadn’t ever undertaken a long hike. So, I remedied that by taking three hikes. First was a warm up for our mountain hike the next day. I wanted to hike along Rhododendron Creek, for the namesake plants, but the trail was closed due to nearby road construction. We also found out later, that the “rhodies” don’t bloom in this area until late May or June. So we settled for a 5+ mile hike in the woods where spring was just arriving.

Trilliums are an early spring flower that we had seen some years on our training hikes around Nashville, but never in the numbers and varieties that we found in the Smokies.

Yellow (as above) and red trilliums were quite striking in their differences, from the more common white variety.

And the best was the Painted Trillium:

I know… you’re already tired of flowers, but one last one, of a Yellow Trout-Lily. We saw only this one specimen during our entire hike. In the background you can see the variety of flowers we enjoyed -

It was a very pleasant walk in the woods.

Of note, it was fascinating to have come from Charleston, where it was deep into spring according to the plant life, and then be transported back to the very beginning of spring in the Smokies.

My main objective for hiking in this park was to climb Mount LeConte. It was described in the AllTrails app as being one of the most popular hikes in the park due to great views along the way, as well as nearly 360 degree views at the top. Also, uniquely, the only overnight enclosed lodging in the park was on top. LeConte Lodge is only accessible by hiking, and we chose the 5 mile Alum Cave trail to get there.

For the first mile or so, we followed that creek upstream, until we came upon the “Natural Arch” -

Looking back at it gave a totally different perspective:

About halfway up the mountain was Inspiration Point -

The trail’s namesake - Alum Cave was just a bit further on:

It’s not really a cave, but is apparently a nice place to wait out inclement weather. As is hinted in my pictures, we had an absolutely stellar day for hiking with clear blue skies and a comfortable light breeze.

As we climbed higher, we were treated to views with ranks of blue “smoky” hills in the distance.

After climbing 3,000ft in 5 miles, we reached LeConte Lodge.

From the Lodge brochure: “Guests are housed in hand built rough hewn log cabins with propane heat, kerosene lanterns, clean linens and warm Hudson Bay wool blankets.”

After eating our lunch of leftover BBQ in the rockers on the porch, we walked another 2 miles checking out the trails on the mountaintop, as well as enjoying the views.

The ranks of blue hills kept drawing my eye -

This was the actual high point on the mountain, at 6,593 ft:

This was just off to the side of a trail, and you could climb up the pile of rocks to say that you stood on the summit. :)

One of the main reasons for spending the night on the mountain was to catch one of the incomparable sunsets or sunrises. With the great weather we had, we were in for a treat -

For the curious among you, the “lodge” (I still find the name funny, as it’s just a collection of cabins; there’s no main lodge) provided dinner of beef and gravy, with mashed potatoes, green beans, cornbread, stewed apples, peach halves and chocolate chip cookie bars. For breakfast, we received scrambled eggs, Canadian bacon, grits, pancakes and coffee. There are no showers, but they do have flush toilets in a separate building.

As the sun went down, I just kept snapping away.

We had followed the weather reports, and knew we weren’t going to have very nice weather for our hike back down the mountain. We awoke to fog and snowflakes on our porch:

Even though I thought I had brought everything we might need, I neglected to include gloves. So, when in need, improvise:

That picture was actually taken back at the bottom of the mountain, where it was snowing large wet flakes as we ended our adventure.

The peace and beauty of the mountains will stay with me for quite a long time.