So you want to be the next Ed Wright?

Oct. 19, 1991: Ed Wright #400, Paul Dinwiddie #703, Margaret Stevenson #500,
and Shirley Henry #105

 Sept. 1 marks the 95th birthday of the late Ed Wright. Of the seven men who have climbed Mount Le Conte more than a thousand times, Wright is the one who left us the best records. His book, 1,001 Hikes to Mount Le Conte, has details for each of his 1,310 climbs. (You can buy a PDF copy of Wright's book for $4.99, and sales benefit Friends of the Smokies). 

 If you want to be the next Ed Wright, you can learn a lot from his journals:

➤ First, become the next Margaret Stevenson or Paul Dinwiddie. Their lifetime totals, 750 for Dinwiddie and 718 for Stevenson, are more within your range. She started hiking Le Conte at age 48, and he made 708 climbs after 65. They both inspired Wright, and if you can surpass them, you will be in the top 10 on our all-time honor roll. When Wright first set foot on Le Conte in 1983, Stevenson already had 179 trips and Dinwiddie 124. The three of them had a spirited competition and celebrated each other's milestones. Wright caught up with Stevenson—he called her "this grand lady" and "bright eyes"—at #615 in 1993 and surpassed Dinwiddie with #751 in 1995. While Dinwiddie was hospitalized in 1992, Wright slowed down to just one or two hikes per month, out of respect. "I didn't want Paul to think that I was taking advantage of his condition," he wrote.

➤ Do the math and take a reality check. If you climbed Le Conte every day for two years, you would still be 20 behind Dinwiddie. Keep it up for a third year, and you would still be 215 behind Wright. And don't even think about hiking every day. Unless your name is Larry Davis. 

➤ Keep a journal. Or even better, log your climbs on Peakbagger.com, ListsofJohn.com, or Summitpost.org, sharing your journey with the rest of us. Wright's journals (and the Lodge blog) are quite helpful when I research stories about Mount Le Conte.

➤ Enjoy the walk. Wright wrote: "I never really had a goal in mind for hiking, except the year that I retired in 1991: I decided to set a mark for hiking Mount Le Conte, in one calendar year, which would only be broken by someone with lots of determination. I hiked the mountain a total of 230 times that year. I also managed to spend several weeks visiting the National Parks in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Canada and the Dakotas with my son, Bob."

➤ Squeeze the most out of every month. In 1991, his record-setting year, Wright made 8 climbs in January, 11 in February, 10 in March, 12 in April, 28 in May, 27 in June, 16 in July, 26 in August, 28 in both September and October, 23 in November, and 13 in December. Not only did he climb Le Conte for 160 consecutive months, but he made at least 10 climbs in 44 of those months. I don't know anybody who is climbing Le Conte 10 times a month nowadays. The busiest year in this century was 68 by Larry Russell in 2014.

Ed Wright with his grandson at Alum Cave Bluff in 2002.
 This was hike #2 for 3-year-old Austin and #1,292 for his 77-year-old granddad.

➤ Get a head start while you're young. Wright was 57 the first time he climbed Le Conte, and he didn't become an obsessive Le Conte pilgrim until he was 61. The first time I heard about him, I actually had more climbs than he did at my age, but my lead didn't last long. Wright logged #100 at age 63, #200 and #300 at 65, #400 and #500 at 66, #600 at 67, #700 at 68, #800 at 69, #900 and #1,000 at 71, #1,100 at 73, #1,200 at 74, #1,300 at 81, and #1,310 at 83.

➤ Don't think of Le Conte in terms of an overnight stay at the Lodge. Wright was frugal, and if he ever spent the night at the Lodge, it's not mentioned in his book. Besides, he preferred to sleep in his own bed, his daughter said. Even if you could get reservations, it would cost you a quarter of a million dollars to stay 1,310 nights. Speaking of "day hikes"—there were 125 days when Wright climbed Le Conte twice. Three of those days, he actually went back for a third lap—a 33-mile day on the trail.

➤ Make no excuses. In 1999, at age 73, Wright was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Still, he hiked up on April Fool's Day and then went into the hospital to have five bypasses and a mitral valve replacement. Five weeks into his recovery, he hiked to Inspiration Point, and the next week he returned to the summit. In 2000, he was sidelined by double knee replacement, but he returned in 11 months, and he accumulated another 43 summit hikes over the next seven years. He eventually moved from Tennessee to Florida, so each hike required days on the highway. After #1,275 in 2002, he wrote: "Some folks think that I should take up a hobby instead of driving 1,500 miles to hike a 6,500-foot mountain in the rain."  

➤ Realize that even if you are the next Ed Wright, you are never going to be the next Ron Valentine. Ron has climbed Le Conte about 3,000 times since 1946, but has never announced his total. I am grateful to Wright for taking time during his last hike in 2008 to quiz Valentine. "I again asked him about his total hikes," Wright wrote in his journal. "My hearing is marginal at best, but I think that he said that he had made 798 hikes to LeConte since January 1, 2000. I think that he said that he had about 3,000 hikes before that. I asked him when he was going to come clean and tell the world of his accomplishments. He replied that he would give the number after I died. I told him that I was not half dead yet.” That means Valentine was still averaging 100 climbs per year when he turned 75. As far as I know, Valentine has not climbed Le Conte since 2017. If you know him, please introduce us so I can document his records.