Climbing Mt. LeConte

For the past few months we have been talking about hiking Mt Leconte, the third highest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains. Ideally, we would hike to the top, spend the night at the lodge and hike back down the next day. However, getting reservations is nearly impossible; you are first entered into a lottery, and if not chosen then you’re put on a long waiting list. So if we were ever going to do it, it would have to be the old-fashioned way: hike up and down the 14-mile trail the same day. I decided the perfect time to plan this was for David’s birthday – spending a weekend in the mountains in March when the weather is not blazing hot and buggy.

We woke up super early to get a head start on the trail. We chose the Trillium Gap Trail, the longer but more flat trail that headed up the mountain. Well, I chose this trail for a chance to see the llamas the lodge uses to get supplies up and down the mountain. After about 1.5 miles in, we reached Grotto Falls. In order to continue down the trail, you have to maneuver behind the waterfall. The rest of the trail wanders through old-growth forest and colorful wildflowers. When we finally reached the summit, the first thing we saw was those adorable llamas resting and eating at the lodge. It was a great welcoming sight.

We ate lunch at the lodge and enjoyed our accomplished views. It was so quiet and peaceful sitting on the large porch, it was easy to understand why reservations were so difficult to obtain. Shortly after the llamas began their decent down the mountain, we soon followed. David and I felt pretty good until we started to hear thunder. Of course when I planned this trip the weather forecast was clear and sunny. But as the weekend approached, it called for scattered showers. But this was not just a scattered shower. It was a complete downpour. Luckily we packed rain jackets, but we picked up our pace and scurried down the mountain.

The rest of the weekend was spent exploring Gatlinburg and enjoying the Smoky Mountains. After the torrential downpour the rest of the weekend was perfect. It was actually the ideal time to see wildflowers blooming. And luckily, the lodge we stayed at had a jetted tub – perfect for sitting on the edge with our sore, sore legs dangling in the jets.