Off-season updates

 During the winter of 2020, we heard updates from Ron Underwood with #431, John Northrup #240, Tim Webb #175, Bonnie Northrup #160-plus, Janice Charleville #102, and Kemp Stonehouse #100-plus.
 From the journals of Paul Dinwiddie, I was able to document #141 for Ernest Luallen, who suffered a fatal heart attack at Arch Rock in 1992. On summitpost.org, I found Steve Prosseda with #101 in 2019.

It was a mild winter by Le Conte standards

Several of Le Conte's most relentless climbers braved knee-deep snow for this rare Leap Day photo-op, including Adam Gravett #62, Timothy Massey #57, Chris Maulden #57, Philip Clarkson #55, and Adam Ozment #39. (Photo by Adam Gravett)

3.5 degrees on Leap Day (photo by Chris Maulden)

 Spring arrived early—Thursday, March 19, thanks to the extra Leap Day—to end a mild winter atop Mount Le Conte.

 Snowfall was unusually light. Blame mist opportunities: Winter brought 40 inches of rain—enough to make 30 feet of powder. Had it been colder, we might have broken the 2000 record of 164 inches of snow. Average snowfall is 82 inches, but this past winter saw just 39.9 inches. 
 Since the start of spring, another 11 inches of snow has been measured at the Lodge, bringing the total to 51.1 inches. That included two inches on Mother's Day weekend—the seventh time since 1978 Le Conte has had snow on Mothers Day.

 This past winter was the first time Le Conte Lodge has not had a sub-zero night, according to 42 years of weather records. The coldest temperature in 2020 was 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit on the night of Jan. 21. That was the 35th anniversary of the alltime-record of minus-32 in 1985.

➤Here is a link for weather at 2,010 meters atop Mount Le Conte. 

Wrapping February in a 10-inch blanket (photo by Adam Gravett)

The holy grail of T-shirts

Airlift cargo next to the office. T-shirts on board? (Photo by Melissa Coatney)

 The "I hiked it" T-shirt is the holy grail of the Le Conte pilgrim. It is only sold at the Lodge, so you have to earn it by hiking to the top of the mountain. 
 Actually, you can pick up a classic version for free, assuming you know where to look, you're willing to bushwhack, and you're willing to put up with some stains and critter holes. 

2007 shirt

2009 shirt

 These are T-shirts that were accidentally dropped years ago during the annual airlift to resupply the Lodge. Each March, bundles of T-shirts along with propane tanks and various staples, are packed into cargo nets that are slung below a helicopter and flown from Highway 441 to the mountaintop. At least three times, T-shirts somehow slipped through the nets and were lost in the Smokies. 
 Off-trail hikers sought these T-shirts for years. In December of 2014, Dave Landreth, Ronnie McCall, and Tommy McGlothlin were exploring a rockslide near Anakeesta Ridge when they found some of the 2007 shirts.
 Landreth described the discovery in an interview with the Cub Report, the newsletter of the Great Smoky Mountains Association: "We simply couldn't believe that after all this time, after eight years, and after enduring all of the brutal weather that regularly sweeps this high aerie in the Great Smokies, that we had actually found the mystery shirts and that many of them were still salvageable. Over the years, [the shirts] had become a source of great debate and conjecture and really had become the holy grail." Some of the shirts were still worthy of framing.
 Landreth is on our honor roll with well over 100 summit hikes. He said in a 2014 interview with the Meanderthals blog, "I've hiked the Alum Cave Bluff trail at least one way hundreds of times over the 40-something years I've been hiking in the Smokies." He also estimated that he has climbed at least 40 times off-trail via Huggins Hell. For more about Landreth, read Peter Barr's 2014 story in Blue Ridge Outdoors magazine, "The Edward Abbey of the East."

 Another off-trail hiker, Mike Poppen, said he has found shirts from three miss drops. In 2019, he posted video of the 2007 shirts. "The holy grail of miss drops," he said, "is the legendary story of a red wagon that fell and is stuck in the top of a tall spruce tree somewhere."

Old-timers hiked Le Conte up to 15 days in a row

 In 2020, we have had a few hikers make back-to-back climbs of Mount Le Conte: Linten Atkins Oct. 3-4, Bill Yeadon July 2-3-4, Timothy Massey March 8-9, and Adam Gravett Feb. 28-29. 
 So what's the record for consecutive days climbing the mountain? 

Paul Dinwiddie on Little Duckhawk Ridge
(Photo by Dr. Ed Jones)

 In Ed Wright's journals, he said in October 2002 that his friend Tillroe Smith from Moody, Ala., had hiked to the Lodge for 15 consecutive days. Wright gave no other details. Smith ranks 17th on our honor roll with at least 345 summit hikes through 2006.
 Smith often made the hike more than once a day. Wright records that Smith twice made seven trips in seven days in the fall of 1999, plus eight trips in a week in the spring of 1999.
 Paul Dinwiddie hiked up the Alum Cave Bluff trail 11 straight days in 1991, July 16-26. In his journal, he doesn't tell us much about the experience, except to say that he went dancing at the O'Connor Center the night after the final hike.

 Dinwiddie was 75 at the time. He climbed Le Conte 102 times in 1991 on his way to his lifetime total of 750, which ranks 9th all-time.
 Wright met Dinwiddie during the 11th hike and told him: "Heavy exercise every day is not good for you. Should have a day of rest every other day."

 1991 was an epic year for climbing Le Conte. That was also when Wright, at age 66, set his one-year record of 230 climbs. (He also had 90 ascents in 1992, 107 in 1993, 104 in 1994, 103 in 1995, 90 in 1996, 130 in 1997, and 111 in 1998). Wright often climbed two or three times in a single day, but heeding his own advice, he rarely hiked on consecutive days.

 Also in 1991: Shirley Henry hiked the mountain seven straight days Sept. 5-11, according to Dinwiddie's journal. Shirley was hurrying toward her 100th hike that October. We have her on the honor roll with at least 173 lifetime climbs.
 Margaret Stevenson, at age 79, climbed five consecutive days Sept. 19-23, 1991. She hiked her age in 1991 with 88 summit hikes, including #500 on Oct. 15.

 More recently, in July of 2012, Mick Meister climbed the Rainbow Falls trail five consecutive days while training for a trip to Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro.

#100by100? Looking for totals from the early 2000s

 Bill Yeadon's #75by75 goal got me thinking about the upcoming centennial of Le Conte Lodge. What's the chance that by 2026, the Le Conte Log honor roll could hit #100by100, with a hundred hikers over 100 climbs?

Ron Valentine has climbed Mount Le Conte
more than anyone else, with about 4,000 trips
since his first hike at age 13 on July 4, 1946.
 He is pictured with Teri Samples.

 As of April 1, 2020, I have documented 74 hikers who have climbed the mountain at least 100 times. I know of a few others that I am still trying to verify. I have a hunch that the late James "Pop" Hollandsworth of Asheville belongs on the list, and I hope to research his journals as soon as possible.
 Several other hikers are closing in on 100. Yeadon, Sandy Martin, Pamela Lewis Barrs, John D. Williams, and Melissa Coatney have all expressed goals of #100.
 Adam Gravett made 39 climbs in 2019 to raise his total to 59. If he keeps that pace, he'll be well past 100 by 2025. Timothy Massey has a goal of 20 ascents in 2020, which would get him to 72. 
 If all those come through, we'll be close to 90 climbers with 100 hikes by 2025. I suspect there are more that I haven't yet identified. There is a four-year gap between my research (started in 2012) and the exhaustive hiking journal of Ed Wright (whose last last summit hike was in 2008). 

—Tom Layton / LeConteLog@gmail.com