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.

Hiking your age: Ozment reaches #29by29, #30by30

Adam got to change the date on the sign at Le Conte Lodge

 One of the more notable accomplishments for a senior golfer is "shooting your age." That means your 18-hole score is equal to (or better than) your age. On the professional golf tour, Sam Snead famously did it twice at age 67 in 1979, when he shot rounds of 67 and 66 in the Quad Cities Open in Illinois. Five-time British Open champion Tom Watson has shot his age sixteen times in competition, including a 63 at age 65. 
 On Mount Le Conte, the equivalent is "hiking your age." This is when your lifetime total for summit hikes matches your age. 
 Adam Ozment, a physical therapy assistant in Knoxville, hiked his age on Oct. 3 when he made his 29th climb on the last day of his 29th year. Then he repeated the feat before dawn Oct. 4 to celebrate his 30th birthday with #30.
 This is the third time this year he has made the climb two or three times in a 24-hour span. He made the Oct. 4 loop (up Alum and down Bullhead) with his Tour de Le Conte co-hikers: 52-year-old Adam Gravett posted Climb #56 and 43-year-old Adam Williamson #39. The three Adams now have a total of 125 climbs at a combined age of 125.
 Ozment is among the youngest to hike his age on Le Conte. Ron Valentine was just 13 when he began climbing Le Conte in 1946, and we can presume he was still a teenager when he hiked his age. The early operators of LeConte Lodge would have been in their 20s when they did it: Paul Adams counted 81 hikes by age 24, and Jack Huff (who was 22 when he began running the Lodge in 1926) hit 1,000 by age 37. And of course, some of the Lodge staff are young enough to have hiked their age, just by going downtown on their weekends off.
 Many of Le Conte's most renowned climbers were in their 60s before they hiked their age, since they started relatively late in life—Gracie McNicol made the first of her 244 climbs at age 62, Ed Wright started at 57 on his way to #1,310, and Margaret Stevenson started at 48 on her way to #718. Paul Dinwiddie made his first climb at 15 but claimed only 40 trips before he turned 65. Then he got busy, hiked his age at 67, and set a lifetime record with #750 at age 78.

 Obviously, all of the hikers who have posted at least 100 climbs have "hiked their age" somewhere along the way. 
 A similar distinction could be made for those who hiked their age in a single calendar year. Wright made 111 hikes in 1998 when he turned 73, Dinwiddie 101 in 1991 when he turned 76, and Stevenson 88 in 1991 when she turned 79.
 There will be more. Kristen Mosley, who made hike #9 on Sept. 2, has stated a goal of #40by40.

 If you have hiked your age—or if you know someone who has—please let us know. Leave a comment below or email: LeConteLog@gmail.com.
 Here are a few others who have hiked their age on Mount Le Conte:

• ADAM WILLIAMSON, #43 at age 43, Jan. 25, 2020.
• CHRIS MAULDEN, #50 on his 50th birthday, Aug. 21, 2019.
• ADAM GRAVETT, #51 at age 51, on Aug. 11, 2019.
• TIMOTHY MASSEY, #51 at age 51 in 2019.
• ED WRIGHT, #62 at age 62, June 13, 1988. That summer, Wright was training to climb Colorado's Longs Peak, so he often made multiple climbs in a day. By the time Wright turned 63, his total was up to #78. Among his 1,310 lifetime hikes, there were three days when he made triple trips and 125 days when he hiked the mountain twice.
• RONNIE HOLBERT, #63 at age 55, on Sept. 1, 2019.
• MARGARET STEVENSON, #66 at age 66, climbing Rainbow Falls Trail in snow March 16, 1978. Her final summit hike was #718 in 1997. 
• PAUL DINWIDDIE, #67 at age 67 on Sept. 25, 1982. He had reached #66 on his 67th birthday. He retired in 1993 with #750—all but 40 of them after he turned 65. 
• RIC CHANDLER, #67 at age 67, Aug. 19, 2019.
• BILL YEADON, #69 at age 69 in 2018. He's now up to #78 at age 71 and has a goal of #100 by age 75. 
• GRACIE McNICOL, probably in 1963. She made her 65th hike on her 71st birthday in 1962. 
• REV. RUFUS MORGAN, #96 at age 85 in 1969. I don't have precise records of when his total matched his age, but he was probably in his 80s. Rev. Morgan kept going to age 93 and retired with #174. 

50by50by50: How cool is that?

Chris Maulden with "the Gary tree"

 

 Chris Maulden of Knoxville marked his 50th birthday on Wednesday morning, Aug. 21, by climbing Mount Le Conte for the 50th time. The weather chimed in with a refreshing temperature of 50 degrees at the Lodge.
 Though Chris may eventually climb Le Conte a hundred times, he is not just chasing a number. "My friend Gary passed away a few years ago, and we scattered his ashes at a location close to Cliff Tops, so I go up a few times a year," he said. "This has more to do with my friendship than with an accomplishment of 100 trips."
 Gary Thaler was hiking the Alum Cave Trail with Maulden in 2010 when he became ill. Doctors at the LeConte Medical Center in Sevierville diagnosed a lethal genetic condition that attacked his internal organs. Gary survived for four years before he died at age 43, but he never had the opportunity to complete his hike. His family got permission to scatter his ashes in the national park, and Maulden did so around an evergreen sapling that now stands 13 feet and is nicknamed "the Gary tree."

Margaret Stevenson's 718th hike, at age 84 on May 21, 1997

 It's not uncommon for hikers to celebrate their birthdays at Le Conte Lodge, even though it's not easy to bake a cake above 6,000 feet.
 The earliest birthday hike we know about was by Paul Fink, who climbed Le Conte on his 29th birthday, June 8 1921, as part of an expedition to measure the mountaintop elevation. Paul thought Le Conte might be the highest mountain in the eastern U.S. His findings resulted in a triangulation by the U.S. Coast  & Geodetic Survey, commissioned by the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce, which established the elevation as 6,593 feet. See Paul's journal, Mountain Days. 
 Next was Cletus Garnes. "His first hike to Mount Le Conte was in August 1926, on his 12th birthday," Ed Wright wrote in his journal. That would have been the first year that Jack Huff operated LeConte Lodge. Garnes was 76 when he returned to the mountaintop with Wright in 1991. 
 Here are a few notables: 

• REV. RUFUS MORGAN (1885-1983) of Franklin NC, climbed the mountain for his 92nd and 93rd birthdays, and his final hike Oct. 15, 1978 (via Trillium Gap Trail) was #174 for him. As far as we know, he is the oldest person to climb Le Conte. He actually made reservations to return for his 94th birthday, but had to cancel the trip for health reasons.
• GRACIE McNICOL (1891-1991) of Maryville TN, made the last of her 244 ascents on her 92nd birthday in 1983. She was also up there for her 90th and 91st. From 1955 through 1966, she celebrated 12 straight birthdays at the Lodge.
• LENORE GUNDY COSTELLO (born 1916) of Lake Alfred FL, climbed Le Conte on her 90th birthday in 2006. I do not have full details, but it appears she went via the Boulevard Trail.
• DICK McALILEY (1928-2014) celebrated his 85th birthday at the Lodge in 2013.
• A man named JENNINGS led a family group up Le Conte in 2012 for his 84th birthday.
• ED HUDSON (1917-2009) of Oak Ridge celebrated his 81st birthday by climbing Le Conte on May 20, 1998.
• ED WRIGHT (1925-2009) of Jensen Beach, Fla. (formerly of Oak Ridge), climbed the mountain on his 65th, 68th, 70th, 72nd, and 80th birthdays. The latter one in 2005 was #1,297 of his lifetime total of 1,310. Wright's friends and family have a memorial hike on his birthday, Sept. 1.  
• ULA RAE MYNATT of Cosby, Tenn., celebrated her 80th birthday at the Lodge in 2011.
• JEAN ANN MILLER of Jackson, Tenn., celebrated her 79th birthday in 2012 by making her #239 climb along with her husband, Dr. Kip Miller.
• RAY CAMERON made his 20th hike on his 73rd birthday Aug. 27.
• BOB TURNEY made his 48th climb on his 72nd birthday, Aug. 11.
• DOROTHY BYWALEC NEWMAN climbed LeConte Oct. 1 to celebrate her 70th birthday.
• PAUL DINWIDDIE (1915-1995) of Knoxville celebrated his 67th birthday with his #66 climb in 1982. He eventually reached #750, with 708 of those after he turned 65. 
• JO ANN CHRISTOPHER of Knoxville climbed Le Conte Sept. 9 to celebrate her 67th birthday. She signed in the logbook with "too many to count."
• ADAM GRAVETT made #55 on his 52nd birthday, Sept 21, 2019.
• DAVE WORTH completed the Tour Le Conte on his 26th birthday in 2011, covering 44 miles in 10:03:41.
• MARGARET STEVENSON (1912-2006) often had her party at the Lodge, but since her group usually hiked on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, the party was not always on her exact birthday, July 17. Friends still remember her birthday with an annual hike to the Lodge. Margaret's bronzed hiking boots and copies of her journal are on display in the Lodge office. She started climbing Le Conte at age 48 and continued until she was 84, when she decided the descent was too dangerous for her. She continued hiking elsewhere in the national park well into her 90s. Friends and fellow hikers have continued to celebrate her birthday, including her 100th in 2012, her 101st in 2013, 102nd in 2014, 103rd in 2015, and 104th in 2016.

Margaret Stevenson's bronzed hiking boots

 Some individuals have made the bucket-list trip for the first time on their birthdays: Terry Tinnell chose his 55th birthday in 2013 to become the first person in a wheelchair to reach the Lodge; and Edwinnia Inman turned 50 on Nov. 14, 2011, the day she climbed the mountain for the first time.

Moses of the Mountain: #174 on his 93rd birthday

'Moses of the Mountains'
Rev. Morgan's portrait at St. Francis Church in Cherokee, N.C.

 Who is the oldest person to climb Mount Le Conte? 

 If you've read Emilie Ervin Powell's book Gracie and the Mountain, you might think it's a tie between Rev. Rufus Morgan, an Episcopal priest who made his 172nd hike on his 92nd birthday in 1977, and Gracie McNicol, a retired nurse who logged her 244th trip on her 92nd birthday in 1983. 

     But it turns out that Rev. Morgan didn't stop at 92. I found this cleverly headlined clipping in the December 1978 issue of the The Communicant (the monthly newspaper of the N.C. Episcopal diocese), verifying that he climbed Le Conte two more times, including his 174th and final trip on his 93rd birthday, Sunday, Oct. 15, 1978.

 McNicol evidently didn't know this when she visited Morgan's cabin on Sept. 26, 1982, when he was 96 and she was about to turn 91. "I told him I was going to match his record of climbing Le Conte at age 92 next year," she said, according to a conversation recorded in Powell's book.
 If she didn't realize his record was 93, he was too much of a gentleman to correct her. Rather than debate facts, he gently kidded her for counting trips on horseback. "He said that I am never going to match his hiking record if I don't stop riding a horse up," she said. 

 Rev. Morgan died the following February at age 97, and Gracie pressed onward toward her goal. She rode horses up the Rainbow Falls trail six times in 1983, and on Oct. 1 she celebrated her 92nd birthday at Le Conte Lodge. By then she had developed vertigo, and her doctor convinced her to not attempt the summit again. (About the same time, the trail was closed to horses.) Gracie was just three weeks short of her 100th birthday when she died in 1991. 

 I found a 1989 story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution where Gracie, at age 97, wanted to try to ride up one more time. But her doctor nixed the idea.

 Rev. Morgan climbed Le Conte for 50 years starting in 1928, six years before the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established. At 93, he still had the stamina to hike, but he was almost blind and needed a guide. The 1978 clipping points out that he carried his own pack, kept a steady pace, and stopped only for lunch on his way up the seven-mile Trillium Gap Trail.

 "I've hiked a million miles in my life, I reckon," he told the church newspaper. That was just a figure of speech, but he certainly walked over 2,000 miles on the slopes of Le Conte.

 And Le Conte was not the only place Rev. Morgan walked. He also frequented Albert Mountain and Siler Bald—mountains named for his grandfather and great-uncle. While in college, he once walked from Vermont to Boston—217 miles in five days. He singlehandedly maintained 55 miles of the Appalachian Trail through the Nantahala Mountains. Friends called him "Moses of the Mountains."

 Here is a 1979 story about Rev. Morgan written by Nancy Brower for the Asheville Times.

SPEAKING OF OLD-TIMERS: The Bible tells us that Moses was 80 when he ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments and was still climbing at 120 when he died on Mount Nebo at "the top of Pisgah" (Deuteronomy 34:1). Morgan and McNicol would have agreed that climbing helped keep Moses spry: "His eyes were not dim nor his natural vigor diminished" (34:7).

Pop goes the record? 

 If anyone has approached Rev. Morgan's record, it is probably James "Pop" Hollandsworth (1915-2013). For more than 35 years, he led memorial hikes for Dr. Charles Lindsley, who died in January 1971 in a fall from Grassy Slide near the top of the Alum Cave Bluff trail. As far as I know, the last time he led the Lindsley hike was at age 92 in 2008—but I wouldn't be surprised if he returned later. If you have any details on his Le Conte hikes, please leave a comment. A World War II veteran, Pop was the founder of the mountaineering program at Asheville School and was also the first director of the North Carolina Outward Bound program.
 Other nonagenarians have climbed Le Conte. When I met 95-year-old Dr. John Adler in July 2016, he said he last climbed Le Conte "about two years ago," which would have been age 92 or 93. But he did not recall the exact date. 
 In a 1940 newspaper column, Ernie Pyle mentioned a 94-year-old man and an 83-year-old woman who hiked up. Unfortunately, Pyle did not record his name for posterity.

 This 1969 photo from Joe Schlatter's Le Conte website shows another old-timer remembered only as "Cousin Joe." According to Joe Schlatter's brother John, who worked for Herrick Brown at the lodge that summer, "He was from South Carolina, was around 90 years old, and was blind.  He hiked with a friend, maybe his doctor, keeping a hand on the friend's shoulder." John Schlatter also pointed out that one of the hikers seated next to the cabin in the background is none other than Rev. Rufus Morgan, who would have been 83 that summer.
 Lenore Gundy Costello of Lake Alfred, Fla., celebrated her 90th birthday by climbing Le Conte in 2006, according to a newspaper account celebrating her 103rd birthday.
 Navy veteran Dick McAliley of Acworth, Ga., celebrated his 85th and final birthday at the lodge in 2013. He climbed Le Conte 23 times, the last five after he recovered from a stroke in 2008.
 Before the lodge was built, a Knoxville florist named Charles Baum claimed to be the oldest to reach the summit. He nailed a copper can to a tree to hold a climbers' logbook, where he wrote, "This book was placed on top of Le Conte Mountain for records on June 6, 1922, by C.L. Baum, at this time said to be the oldest man to climb to the top, age 61." (The date may be incorrect, because Baum's gravestone indicates he actually would have been 59 in 1922.)