Mount Le Conte Trip Report

“wonder if i can find a store that sells crampons in South Florida...........


doubt it! mail order maybe? will they even ship those down here? or will they think I'm joking?”

“It's a long time away, but I'm always up for a good hiking trip, Opie.

Put me down as a maybe. :)”

“Just be aware that illegal camping (meaning not in a designated campsite or shelter) in the Smokies carries a very stiff fine.”

“HPM: That's why I like hiking in the national forests better than I like the NPS places.

:)”

“do they allow tent camping right next to the shelter if the shelter is out of room? I'm going to reserve as much space as I can in the shelter. You can only reserve 8 spaces and no more than 30 days prior to the night of camping. The spaces will be first come first serve. Anyone that wants to tent camp next to the shelter will be welcome to do that at their own risk. I don't think rangers will be checking at that time of year. When I was there last year I didn't see a single ranger anywhere near LeConte.”

“* laughs * That time of year?.. There won't be an Eddie Bauer camper around for miles.. You should have the LeConte shelter all to yourself.”

“i will sleep ontop of someone and pull someone on top of me if we do this again...not gay..just not stupid..i'm down for this..but i am gonna get GOOD crampons..and some other gear”

“surprisingly, even in the winter time the LeConte Shelter get's booked pretty quickly.”

“LOL be prepared to spend the coldest night of your life on the top of this mountain.”

“I need to get some good crampons and a down coat. Last time OPIE was pretty snug in his sleeping bag with the down coat while I froze in my sleeping bag with out. Other than that I am pretty good gearwise. I think I need to get some new gloves too. Lost mine.”

“I tend to agree TD and sleeping on a peak is very cool.

No they don't allow that. Especially at that shelter cause it gets overused and abused. I think the limit for that shelter is 12. The tent camping next to shelters things is for only thruhikers during the AT season and only at shelters on the AT.

Group size limit is 8, period. So any more than that then someone else needs to get a permit for the remaining slots and go as a "separate" group.

The rangers usually pass by there during the LeConte Lodges operating season. So you will probably be ranger free. Don't count that as an endorsement though.”

“I might take a week and do the AT from Newfound to Davenport between Christmas and newyears though. Dunno, too far out to commit.”

“I will get as many spots in the shelter as I can. We have months to plan though. Earliest I can make the reservation is November anyhow.”

“If there are no problems with Newfound Gap rd., it would also be cool to climb LeConte via Alum Cave and then take the BLVD to the AT and the AT to Newfound Gap. The BLVD trail is really awesome and it would be neat to view the Smokies from the Jumpoff in the winter. Hmmmm...”

“That's a nice hike in winter. Towndawg knows this story.
2001”

“I love HPM's trip reports!!!!!...thanks for sharing!!!!”

“those are nice photos and that is a good report HPM. What month was that?”

“that was my point in my post. It will be cold, so we better all be prepared.”

“That was in mid-MArch. I've seen it like that in April too.

LeConte logs some of the coldest temps in that park.”

“I hear that LeConte and Mt. Sterling have the worst weather in the park. Mt. Sterling is another place I need to go.”

“No such thing as bad weather. Just bad gear choices.”

“Mt. Sterling is a great campsite, the highest in the Park, I think. I got caught in a spring snow storm (mid March) up there a couple of years ago, nasty weather, but it was a postcard winter wonderland when we got up. My little thermometer said it was 5 degrees at dawn.

Ask my son about it sometime, it was cold, he'll tell you how cold, lol.”

“"No such thing as bad weather. Just bad gear choices."

humanpackmule
08:22:00 AM

Hurumph.. whatever dude.. Just kidding!! I agree with you totally.”

“If anyone wants to bring up tornados and hurricanes I still stand by that statement.

In those cases your gear should be a truck and you should get the hell outta there.”

“a -5° bag ought to keep you warm then, esp if you have extra clothes with ya”

“Hmm I might make it also? We went for a week long hike and topped it off at a night at the lodge about a month ago. We were nuts though, the previous night we had hiked up to clingmans dome at 1 am with some other guys that were hiking the AT, Night Rider and Publix I believe (??? anybody familiar with them), so we figured we would do a night hike to leconte. Bad Idea. 99% chance of rain. Start at alum cave trail at 7 pm, started raining about 8, we didnt get to the shelter (we stayed at the shelter that night, the next we stayed at the lodge) until 1 am, it was pouring down raining, lightning (that was what was scaring the sh*t out of me). Plus we didnt have a tent (dropped it off at nf gap), my buddys flashlight was dead, my led flashlight was dim, we were wearing cotton (yes we buy our gear at walmart, though that was the last time that will happen), both of our rain ponchos were torn, i brought a lantern, but evidently, the mantle had broken, so I had to do a quick fix job and it was barely lighting though the lantern really helped. Anyways... we made it to the shelter on sunday night/mon morning at 1am to find one guy staying there, right after we arrived it started a torrential downpour (it was already raining hard), and it rained all night long. Fun stuff though, Ill definitely be better prepared next time. A winter leconte hike would be sweet...”

“oops messed up the first part...
"Hmm I might make it also. We went for a week long hike to Mt. Leconte and topped it off at a night at the lodge about a month ago."
There. Sorry I had to have some resemblance of correct sentence structure.”

“dammit... meant the smokies...
"Hmm I might make it also. We went for a week long hike to the Smokies and topped it off at a night at the lodge about a month ago."
Too much caffine.”

“Mt LeConte is an unpredictible mountain. Prepare for anything when climbing her.”

“It will be my third climb this year. Gonna go up Alum Cave Trail and back down The Boulevard. That will leave me Trillium Gap and Brushy Mtn. to do as an overnighter. Hope the weather is clear for some outstanding views! Flowers should be real pretty up there this time of year. Corn lillies are one of my favorites.”

“are you going to take some photo Dana? I can't wait to see.”

“I didn't click HPM's link, but I suspect that's his scouting trip. Great pics. I still haven't climbed LeConte. That's on my to-do list. I'd love to do this trip, but don't have anything close to the gear required to do it. I might start accumalating some winter gear. Building the down quilt was easy. Maybe I should build a 0*, 2# sleeping bag. I've thought about it, maybe time to do more than just think.”

“i worked my butt of this month, so I should be able to afford me a new minus degree sleeping bag. All my other gear...well, I am ready for snow, ice, etc...

only thing missing is an ice axe, and I doubt that I'll need that on Leconte. :)”

“yep, this trip is a great excuse to get that down bag i've wanted for a while now.

crampons too.

I'm lookin forward to this one.”

“We shouldn't need ice axes on LeConte unless we go off trail. Alum Cave trail can get really ice covered in the winter I hear so that should be interesting. Good crampons are a must.”

“Of course! Don't laff though.
Since the weather has been hot, I've gotten fed up with all this hair and taken to wearing plaits. Its great from the stand point of my hair is out of the way. No fuss and my daughter does a fantastic job of fixing it for me. My hubby teases me about it. He says I'm Inga the Swedish Milk Maid. Tells me I'm his little girl with the serious hormone problem. Thats ok. He's gotta sleep sometime. ;-)
Inga will win this round. hee hee hee”