Friday, August 18, 2017

Dr. Ed Jones #350: Not an April Fools' joke

 Hikers arriving at Le Conte Lodge with reservations for the night of April 1 were greeted with this joke on the iconic sign above the dining-room doors:

 When they went to write their names in the logbook and scanned down the column that shows how many trips each guest has made to Le Conte, they probably thought they were seeing another April Fools prank:
 350 trips to Le Conte? As far-fetched as it must have seemed for sore-footed novices signing the register for the first or second time, that's no joke.
 Dr. Ed Jones probably has climbed Mount Le Conte more times than any active hiker except for Ron Valentine, David Dinwiddie, and a few of the staffers at the Lodge. He made his 400th ascent on July 20, 2019.
 He is a physicist and physician in Knoxville whose website, ecjones.org, includes hundreds of photos chronicling 35 years of hikes and explorations on Le Conte. He is also a meticulous record-keeper—note how he documented his dates for hikes 347, 348, and 349, which he made while the Lodge was closed for winter. 
 Jones was in medical school at the University of Tennessee in 1996 when he first showed up in the hiking journals of Ed Wright. At that time, Wright had 852 climbs and Jones 188. Wright (who finished with 1,310) described Jones as a close friend of Paul Dinwiddie (the previous record-holder with 750) and an expert on the off-trail routes up Le Conte. By the time he earned his M.D. in 2000, Jones had 243 climbs. I wonder if any other medical student has found time to hike Le Conte more than 50 times.
Dr. Ed Jones at High Top (photo from his website)

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