Jack-o-Lantern Huff

Nathan Kirkham carved a pumpkin to portray Jack Huff carrying his mom up Mount Le Conte

 Among the ways the Lodge crew amuse themselves is by having a Jack-o-Lantern contest the week of Halloween. The 2014 winner, by Nathan Kirkham, celebrated the 85th anniversary of Jack Huff's famous 1929 hike carrying his mother up the mountain.

'They tell me it is beautiful up here'

Stephen and Beth Winkler (showing her LSU pride)

 Beth Winkler arrived at LeConte Lodge on Sunday afternoon, September 6, to applause from hikers she had met on the trail.

 "They tell me it is beautiful up here," she had joked to one of the them along the way.

Beth's T-shirt says it all

 Most of us enjoy the panoramic views while climbing Le Conte, but Beth is not so fortunate. She describes herself as visually impaired. "I can see—just not well at all," she said. She has a rare condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa Inversa, which has blinded her right eye, diminished what she can see in her left eye, and eliminated the depth perception that is so crucial for hiking on a mountainside. Her vision can fluctuate day-by-day, and the bright sunshine on the mountain caused what she called "a bad eye day." For all practical purposes, she was hiking blind.

 Her husband Stephen said that she had set a goal of climbing Mount Le Conte before she loses her sight.
 She researched the trails and thought that the Trillium Gap Trail might be easier. "But the more I read about Alum Cave, the more I wanted to go up. And to be honest, I did not want it to be easy. I wanted it to be something I earned."
 Coming from her home in Louisiana, there was no way she could prepare for the rigors of a 10-mile round trip that climbs nearly 3,000 feet. The longest hike she had done was about 4 miles. So her family started at dawn and took their time. "It was a difficult strenuous hike," she said. "I could not have done it without the support of my husband and two sons. They would describe the terrain and tell me where to step." It took over 14 hours. That meant the last mile down was after sunset.

'The ledge at the top was terrifying'

 The Alum Cave Trail involves single-log footbridges as well as exposed ledges near the top. "The bridges didn't bother me," Beth said. "The ledge at the top was terrifying. I was not sure if I could do it. But my family told me that I could and gave me the support I needed to make it across. It is also scarier on the way down for some reason."
 I am aware of three other nearly blind hikers who have climbed Le Conte. Rev. Rufus Morgan hiked the Rainbow Falls Trail on his 93rd birthday in 1983, and in 1969 a South Carolina hiker known as "Cousin Joe" did it. Both of them hiked with a hand on the shoulder of their guides. More recently, a woman named Lisa Berry climbed the mountain guided by her husband Ken. 

Conquering 'Mount LeHope'

 We are always happy to hear from those who have overcome physical challenges to reach the mountaintop. Two of these milestones happened on September 1, the birthday of Ed Wright—who overcame heart and knee surgery on the way to his record total of 1,310 hikes. 
 Glenda Coker posted this on the Le Conte Lodge website in 2012: 

Hi. I would like to thank you for the awesome experience of hiking Alum Trail last yr. I have hiked Mt. LeConte in the 90’s but this was my true mountain top experience. Sept 01, 2009, I had the right lobe of my lung removed due to a rare bacteria. Due to complications, I had a 2nd surgery in Nov. In very critical condition, Mt. LeConte was my vision to set a goal of my favorite mountain. I spite of all odds, many medications and a faith I could hike it again my dream was fulfilled. Against ALL odds, there was a cancellation last yr. on the very date I had surgery previously. I was at the top of my Mt. LeConte my dream fulfilled in everyway, 9/1/2011. Because I made it to the top, it has been a beacon of others who have on the same journey I was on. Mt. LeConte is more than a physical mountain to me. It is Mt. LeHope!! A vision that came true. I did get to see the other side of the mountain in more ways than imaginable! Thank you so much. I will be back.

 Ronnie Holbert of Morristown, Tenn., chose Wright's birthday in 2019 for his first summit hike after he underwent double knee replacement surgery. Wright (1925-2009) made his last 43 hikes after having double knee replacement in 2001—not to mention 132 climbs after heart surgery in 1999.
 Dr. Kip Miller of Jackson, Tenn., made his 100th hike in 2000, just 24 days after he had heart bypass surgery. The last I heard from Kip and his wife Jean was in 2018, when they made their 254th climb.

 Dick McAliley climbed Le Conte five times after suffering a stroke.

 At least three visually impaired hikers have climbed Le Conte, including Rev. Rufus Morgan on his 93rd birthday in 1983, a 1969 hiker known as "Cousin Joe," and Beth Winkler on Sept. 6, 2020. 

 Terry Tinnell climbed the Trillium Gap trail in a wheelchair on his 55th birthday in 2013.

 Daniel Bice climbed the Bullhead Trail in 2019 on a prosthetic leg.
 Amanda Ratliff has overcome two cardiac surgeries to climb Mount Le Conte twice and Mount Cammerer three times. 

Bullheaded: Daniel Bice climbed Le Conte on one leg

Daniel Bice makes his way through a snag

 The 7-mile-long Bullhead Trail isn't the easiest or most popular way to Mount Le Conte. It was closed for nearly two years following the 2016 wildfires in the Smokies, and even after it reopened in October 2018, it has often been blocked by the falling trunks of charred trees. 
 But none of that stopped Daniel Bice of Knoxville, who successfully climbed the Bullhead Trail to Mount Le Conte on April 20, 2019, on a prosthetic leg. His lower right leg had to be amputated four years ago because of blood clots.
 "That's a tough hike. I don't care who you are," he told TV station WBIR. "It would even be tough for someone who's not an amputee. It's a tough little deal, but the thing is, we made it."

The unstoppable Dinwiddies of Le Conte

David Dinwiddie (photo by WVLT-TV)

 Knoxville's WVLT-TV produced a nice "Tennessee Traveler" episode on David Dinwiddie, where he estimates he has climbed Mount Le Conte nearly 800 times.
 The story doesn't say so, but "nearly 800" would mean that David, 76, has surpassed the record of his late father, Paul Dinwiddie (1915-1995), who climbed Le Conte 750 times from 1931 through 1993.
 With David added to the Le Conte Log honor roll, we now have three men named Dinwiddie among our top nine.

Graham 'Cracker' Cooper

 Graham Dinwiddie Cooper Jr. (better known as Cracker) told Ed Wright in 1994 that he had climbed Le Conte about 1,000 times but did not have an exact count. Wright's and Paul Dinwiddie's journals tell us that Cooper continued to frequent the mountaintop at least eight more years through 2002. A farmer in Greenback, Tennessee, Cooper died at age 83 in 2013. 
 Paul Dinwiddie kept meticulous records. He made 706 of his 750 climbs after he turned 65, including 135 consecutive months he climbed the mountain. In 1991, at age 75, he climbed Le Conte 11 days in a row.
 Paul and Graham were second cousins. In his journal, Paul explained that Cooper's grandfather married the sister of Paul's grandfather. 
 In the same era, Margaret Stevenson started climbing Le Conte at age 48 and finished with 718 climbs. 

Gracie McNicol (left) claimed a record with her 244th ascent of LeConte on her 92nd birthday in 1983. Paul Dinwiddie (right) raised the record to 750 at age 78 in 1993. Ed Wright surpassed Paul Dinwiddie in 1995 and Graham Dinwiddie Cooper in 1997 on the way to his lifetime total of 1,310. (Photo by Dr. E.C. Jones)

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(From the Knoxville News Sentinel, Dec. 24, 2004)

Keeping wits after fall helped hiker stay alive
Man who took shelter in sleeping bag kept life, but may lose fingers

By SCOTT BARKER
December 24, 2004

 The snow was knee-deep on Inadu Knob.
 Temperatures dropped below zero on the mountain, making David Dinwiddie's hands so stiff he couldn't prepare any food. For days snow was his sustenance and his only shelter was a down sleeping bag.
 As the hours passed, he prayed that someone — anyone — would find him as he lay in the middle of the Appalachian Trail about 6,000 feet above sea level in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
 Dinwiddie's prayers were answered Tuesday evening when three hikers stumbled into the makeshift campground he'd fashioned after falling on the trail Sunday.
 Frostbitten, hypothermic and a little disoriented, Dinwiddie had already spent two nights in the rugged mountains south of Cosby on the North Carolina border. His sleeping bag very nearly served as a burial shroud.
 Seated in a wheelchair Thursday morning in an 11th-floor lounge at the University of Tennessee Medical Center, Dinwiddie recounted his harrowing backcountry experience.
 "I knew I was going to get out," the 62-year-old veteran backpacker said less than 14 hours after being rescued by park rangers. "I just didn't know when."
 His fingers were black and swollen from frostbite, his toes a dishwater gray. His speech was thick, and he sometimes had difficulty understanding questions. At his side sat Richard Butcher, who had accompanied Dinwiddie on many previous hikes.
 "He's a survivor," Butcher said. "He's tough."
 Dinwiddie's ordeal began on Sunday, when he hiked up the steep, 4.6-mile Snake Den Ridge Trail. His destination was the Tricorner Knob shelter, nearly 4 miles farther down the Appalachian Trail. He had planned to meet some friends from Florida at the shelter and trek with them to shelters at Cosby Knob and Davenport Gap.
 Dinwiddie turned onto the Appalachian Trail. As he slogged through the 18-inch-deep snow and freezing wind, he lost his footing.
 "I stepped on the trail and it gave way on me," he said.
 Dinwiddie tumbled down and found himself entangled in branches. After more than an hour of struggling to free himself, Dinwiddie took off his gloves so he could remove his backpack. By the time he wriggled out, his hands were frozen.
 Dinwiddie decided not to risk hiking out. After all, he was only a short distance from his destination, where friends presumably were waiting on him. He crawled into his sleeping bag to warm up. Because he'd planned to stay in shelters, he didn't pack a tent.
 Unbeknownst to Dinwiddie, his Florida friends had cut short their trip because of the snow and swirling winds in the high Smokies. He was alone on the mountain.
 The temperature plunged. On Mount LeConte, 12 miles away as the raven flies from Dinwiddie's perch and less than 300 feet higher in elevation, the thermometer read 11 degrees below zero on Monday.
 Dinwiddie stared up at the stars, which hung like shards of shaved ice in the clear mountain skies.
 "I just looked at 'em and looked at 'em till it turned daylight again," Dinwiddie said.
 He knew he couldn't fall asleep. When a person suffers from hypothermia, sleep is little more than the first phase of death.
 "I didn't panic," Dinwiddie said. "I didn't get scared. I talked myself into not going to sleep."
 An Operation Desert Storm veteran, Dinwiddie said his military training had taught him how to stay awake for long periods of time. He needed that training as the hours stretched into days.
 Dinwiddie carried plenty of food, but his frozen fingers couldn't open the packaging. His camping stove was useless.
 Instead, he would form snowballs, put them into his mouth and let them melt so he could stay hydrated. The only solids he consumed were evergreen needles and dirt embedded in the snow. Preparing the snowballs further exposed his already damaged fingers.
 On Tuesday morning, with temperatures warming into the 20s, he dug out his cell phone and managed to call a Sevier County 911 operator, who relayed the call to the National Park Service switchboard.
 The call was garbled. The 911 system, the Park Service and the phone company determined he was in the northeastern portion of the park, but couldn't pinpoint the location.
 That evening, a trio of hikers came upon Dinwiddie's sleeping bag in the darkness. They hustled down the mountain and notified park personnel.
 Three rangers — Pat Patten, Gene Wesloh and Joe Pond — headed for the trailhead about 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday. Four hours later, they were at Dinwiddie's side. Pond, who's also a medic, assessed Dinwiddie's condition. His body temperature had plunged to 94 degrees.
 The rangers hustled Dinwiddie out of his soggy sleeping bag and into a hastily erected tent. After changing him into some dry clothes, they made him drink hot chocolate, both for sustenance and to raise his core temperature.
 Chief Ranger Jim Northup said Dinwiddie would have died had he not kept his wits about him after his fall.
 "He certainly did the right thing by getting into the sleeping bag," Northup said.
 More than two dozen people joined in the rescue effort. The state park system sent eight rangers to augment the National Park Service rescue team. A group arrived at the tent with a litter.
 Fighting a ferocious storm, the rescuers placed Dinwiddie onto the litter and dragged him down the trail.
 "We were actually able to slide him on the snow to the top of the Snake Den Ridge trail on Maddron Bald," Northup said.
 When the snow cover petered out, the rangers transferred Dinwiddie to a more nimble litter outfitted with a wheel and brakes.
 Bob Fulcher, manager of the Cumberland Trail State Park, was a member of the fourth and final team that went up the mountain late Wednesday afternoon to help bring Dinwiddie down in the teeth of the storm.
 "It was incredible weather — winds gusting to 60 miles an hour, with sleet, mist and snow flying sideways, depending on the elevation," Fulcher said.
 "He would groan in pain and let you know he was hurt," Fulcher continued. "This guy had been lying in the snow for three days. The fact that he was partially lucid is amazing."
 The rangers got Dinwiddie down about 9:30 p.m. as wind and rain lashed the mountaintops. On Cove Mountain, the Park Service recorded the highest wind speeds ever in the Smokies — 110 mph.
 Dinwiddie said he would have died had he remained on the mountain. As it is, he might emerge from the hospital maimed. Doctors have told him he may lose some of his fingers.
 Holding his blackened, trembling hands before him, Dinwiddie said, "I can't move any of these fingers at all."
 A planned hike to Spence Field next week, a New Year's ritual for Dinwiddie, will have to be cancelled for only the second time in 37 years. But Dinwiddie said he would return to the mountains as soon as he recovers. The Smokies are in his blood.
 His father, the late Paul Dinwiddie, hiked Mount LeConte 750 times between his 65th birthday and his death in 1995 at age 80. Like his father, Dinwiddie spends much of his time in the mountains and has helped his share of hikers in trouble.
 "I've helped a lot of people out of them mountains," he said. "I didn't think I'd be one of them someday."

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.)

Jack Huff made thousands of climbs, 1 for Mama

In 1929, 25-year-old Jack Huff strapped a chair to his back to carry his frail mother to the top of Mount Le Conte. He made the seven-mile hike in five hours, stopping only when she got tired.

 How many times did Jack Huff climb Mount Le Conte? We can only guess, since he stopped counting in 1937 after he surpassed 1,000 climbs in 11 years.

 Considering that he operated Le Conte Lodge for 24 years from 1926 through 1949, it's possible that he more than doubled that total.
 When I first compiled the Le Conte Log, I estimated Huff's total at 3,000. Since then, I learned that after 1949, his wife Pauline Huff  managed the mountaintop Lodge, while Jack stayed in Gatlinburg to manage his family's hotel. The Huffs sold the Lodge in 1960 to Herrick and Myrtle Brown in 1960. Considering that, I revised my estimate and now list Huff at about 2,500. 
 What we can document about Huff's hikes comes from this 1940 newspaper column by Ernie Pyle, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and war correspondent who was killed in 1945 in the Battle of Okinawa. This clipping was one of a series of nationally syndicated columns Pyle filed from the Great Smoky Mountains in the weeks after President Franklin D. Roosevelt officially dedicated the new national park.
 "A mountaineer's strength is in his heart, and not necessarily in a big body," Pyle wrote. "Jack Huff weighs only 150 pounds, and stands sort of folded up with his hands in his pockets. But his walking feats are astounding." By 1940, Pyle figured that Huff had walked over 15,000 miles on the steep slopes of Le Conte, treading out the trails we follow today.
 Jack Huff is the architect of the Lodge we know today. He chose the site near the Le  Conte Spring and built the first three-room Lodge in 1933 and the dining hall in 1939. According to his daughter, Cookie Bowling, the previous campsite built by Paul Adams in 1925 was further up toward Cliff Tops. "Dad chose the site where the Lodge is today," she  said. "This is how he explained it to me."
 Jack Huff died Nov. 4, 1985, at age 82. His family still owns and operates a hotel in Gatlinburg named Jack Huff's, and I sent this clipping to them to see if they could tell me more about his exploits. Cyndi Bowling replied:

That is a wonderful article that we have not ever seen. I shared it with my mother-in-law, Cookie Bowling [Jack Huff's daughter]. She doesn't know exactly how many trips he made after he stopped counting in 1937. She said she does know he hiked many more times because she was born in 1944, and there is a story of him carrying her off the mountain. She said his last trip was in 1960 when he sold Mt. LeConte Lodge.

 Speaking of President Roosevelt and his 1940 speech at Newfound Gap to dedicate the Great Smoky Mountains National Park ... one of the men who was in the presidential honor guard that day ranks among the centurions of Le Conte.

 Dr. John Adler, now 95, built the Cabins at Sandy Mush Bald, another mountaintop lodge 30 miles east of Le Conte. I had the opportunity to meet him when I hiked up Sandy Mush Bald (the highest point in Madison County, N.C.) on July 4, 2016.
 Dr. Adler told me that he used to make weekly climbs up Le Conte to deliver mail to the lodge, and before Huff sold the lodge he considered Dr. Adler as his possible replacement. Dr. Adler is confident that he has made over a hundred hikes up Le Conte, though he doesn't have an exact count.

Jack Huff's family at the Lodge in 2011

In 1953, Huff strapped on the chair for this photo in the Nashville Tennessean.

Today, the chair is displayed at the Museum of East Tennessee History in Knoxville.

Climbing Le Conte in a wheelchair

Reprinted from Ability Magazine, 2013

By Josh Pate
Ability magazine

It was that post-Christmas dinner hangover, when you’re so full it hurts to move. That evening Terry Tinnell’s family sat around having one of those pie-in-the-sky conversations, batting around the question: What’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever visited?

All eyes turned to Tinnell’s brother-in-law, Jim Myers, an avid outdoorsman who lives in Knoxville, TN, at the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. He’s traveled all over the world. Everyone was eager to know what his answer would be.

“Mount Le Conte,” Myers said without hesitation.

The third highest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park at an elevation of 6,593 feet, Mount Le Conte is a hiker’s dream destination. It has five trails:

Alum Cave (5.5 miles, 2,560-foot net climb)
The Boulevard (8 miles, 1,080-foot net climb)
Bullhead (7.2 miles, 3,820-foot net climb)
Rainbow Falls (6.5 miles, 3,820-foot net climb)
Trillium Gap (6.5 miles, 3,300-foot net climb)

Though the site is stunning, fatalities sometimes occur as hikers try to climb to Le Conte Lodge, which is at the mountaintop. Once there however, the place is rustic and charming. The lodge is also popular. With such high demand for accommodations, the management must hold a lottery to determine who can stay overnight. Hikers, however, are welcome to bunk in outdoor shelters. (Although, bear claw indentations on a nearby restroom door are a reminder that campers may get some unexpected company during the night.)

At the lodge, dinner is served every evening at 6 pm and typically consists of a sandwich, chips and oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies. Though a modest buffet, after hours and hours of conquering the mountain, hikers often say it’s the best meal they’ve ever eaten.

Challenges aside, there’s a reason Myers said that Mount Le Conte was the most beautiful place he’s ever visited: The views are breathtaking and serene. So when Myers mentioned the site, Tinnell piped up with some regret. Though he and his wife grew up in the Knoxville area and lived most of their lives there, they now live a good distance away from the fabled peak—just north of Atlanta.

“I’ve been all over the Smoky Mountains and, for whatever reason, we never went to Mount Le Conte, either one of us,” Tinnell told his family. “I feel bad we lived so close and I never took Cindy. Now I guess I never will.” Myers disagreed with him.

“I thought, why not?” Myers recalled. “We can do it. It’s not going to be easy, but we can accomplish this with the right equipment and people.” Tinnell had doubts.

“I looked down at my chair and back at him like, are you stupid?” Tinnell recalled. “That was the start of it. I looked around the table and saw the look in everybody’s eyes. Here was a challenge that we could attack as a group.”

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

Tinnell, 55, uses a wheelchair following his diagnosis of T12 transverse myelitis, an inflammation of the spinal cord. He’s not one to ask for accommodations or make excuses. While the conversation occurred during the 2011 holiday season, that wasn’t the first time his family had rallied around him with sparkles in their eyes.

He had learned to play wheelchair tennis and his family went all-in to support this new hobby. He and his folks had always camped, backpacked and kayaked and about six months after he began using the chair, his wife spearheaded a camping trip just for the two of them. Tinnell was anxious. In fact, he was so nervous that his mind raced ahead, considering every aspect of the trip and how he would camp using the chair.

He was so focused on the trip that he didn’t realize his family was up to something until he and Cindy returned to discover that family and friends-about 30 people in all-had spent the weekend renovating Tinnell’s home with accessible features. The house was built in 1896, so the overhaul included a ramp out the back door, a new bathroom and a main-floor office space, which was transferred from upstairs.

“Within the nucleus of this group, I’ve seen that spark before,” Tinnell said of his extended family’s team spirit. He had a tear in his eye and a quaver in his voice. “It is impressive as well as humbling.” And so Tinnell and his family’s two-year mission to get to the top of Mount Le Conte was officially launched.

First, he and Myers needed to determine who would make the trip. Tinnell’s wife, Cindy, was a mandatory member of the crew. The fact that the couple had never been to the top of LeConte was the point of the trip. Tinnell wanted the rest of his family to go as well, so his 24-year-old daughter, Erin, came along, as did his 25-year-old son, Julian. Tinnell also invited Myers, his sister and his brother, as well as some lifelong buddies.

He only wanted family and close friends to go, but Myers convinced him the team needed some muscle along on the trip for the heavy lifting. That’s when Myers recruited a few of his kids’ friends, 20-somethings who knew how to keep going when the going gets rough.

Next step: Determine the transportation plan. Myers first thought about using a wheeled stretcher, much like the ones rolled out to rescue people from hiking trails when things go bust. Tinnell vetoed that plan.

“No way I’m doing that,” he said, “because I’m not going up there unless I help propel myself. I recognize I’m going to need help, but I want to participate.”

The group decided on a three-wheel water wheelchair because of the durability of the wheels and its ability to maneuver over rocky terrain. A water wheelchair has oversized tires and sits in a more reclined triangular position with one wheel in the front and two in the back. It is often used for beaches or to assist someone getting in or out of water through a ramped entrance.

Finally, the group had to choose the best trail to take.

“Although my sister, brother and her husband have been to Mount Le Conte every year at least a couple times over the last 20 years, every weekend they hiked a different trail, taking pictures and making a detailed account about what we could do to manage various obstacles. They decided which trail would be our best option.”

Myers admitted the decision was difficult.

“We had done the Trillium Gap trail and when you go on it and think you will be taking a wheelchair, you think, oh my gosh,” Myers said. “Then we did Bullhead. We had hiked the Boulevard so we knew it. When you start thinking about a wheelchair, you just have a totally different mind-set.

“Trillium is rough, and Bullhead is even longer and narrower, but it didn’t seem as rough. It was tough deciding, but we finally settled on Bullhead. We revisited it and then Le Conte asked us to revisit it again.”

The crew at Le Conte Lodge requested that the team review their plans to make sure it was not only doable, but also whether it was their best option. After Myers revisited Bullhead, he had second thoughts about the trail. The crew at Le Conte knew Bullhead was more difficult than it might’ve initially seemed.

“So we changed our mind and actually went with Trillium, and it ended up working out,” Myers said.

Trillium Gap is the 6.5-mile trail that climbs 3,300 feet-a rough trail that is an average length but the second steepest of the five. Still, based on Myers’ and other family members’ research, it seemed like the optimal path for the wheelchair the group had chosen. They decided to do a test run at Kennesaw Mountain, but the trail there is gravel. Mount Le Conte is pure wilderness.

Once they sorted out the logistics, the family crossed its fingers for a date to spend the night. Mount Le Conte’s lottery system opens each year on October 1, and hikers can request up to three potential dates. Tinnell wanted the management at Le Conte Lodge to know they were coming, whether they got a date or not. (Remember the cabins with the bear claw indentations?)

“Prior to October, I called the general manager at Mount Le Conte and told him what we were trying to accomplish,” Tinnell said. “He told me he couldn’t help with getting us in; it was simply the lottery system. Second, he tried extremely hard to talk us out of attacking the mountain.”

General manager Tim Line knows the dangers of hiking Le Conte. He’s from nearby Knoxville and began working at the lodge in 1977. He’s also seasoned when it comes to safety and what it takes to make it up the mountain. He’s seen people die trying to scale it, and he’s seen people who wished they’d never laid eyes on that mountain. To toss aside being politically correct for a moment, Mount Le Conte is not recommended for someone who uses a wheelchair.

“His concern was safety,” Tinnell said. “He didn’t want people to get hurt.”

He and Line went back and forth via e-mail regarding when Tinnell aimed to hike the mountain, how he planned to do it, which trail they intended to use and when the staff should expect his party so they could be prepared—just in case something went wrong.

“One of his last e-mails was, ‘I hope you’re all prepared for the task of what you’re trying to do,'” Tinnell added.

Quite frankly, every season the Le Conte Lodge staff treks down the mountain on rescue missions for people who thought they were prepared to hike the mountain but were not. Tinnell thanked Line for the advice and then got back to planning.

“It just so happened I was turning 55 on May 15, so I thought if you’ve got to go during the week, it would be cool to spend my 55th birthday at the top of Mount Le Conte. We put Wednesday, May 15, as our third choice. We put Friday night, May 17, as our first choice and Thursday night, May 16, as our second choice. They did the lottery and we got in for May 15, my birthday.”

BEAUTIFUL BIRTHDAY

To be clear, the hike up and back down wasn’t all cake and champagne. It took the group seven-and-a-half hours to hike a trail that people typically complete in less than five hours. Still, the time was faster than Myers anticipated. He knew the journey would be difficult and he was right. In Tinnell’s words: “My brother in-law, Jim, is smarter than me, so I should have known when he was intimidated that I should have been nervous.

“I had no understanding of how difficult it was going to be,” Tinnell continued. “As an example, one gentleman who went with us is 30 and an exercise fanatic. He does hiking-trail marathons as if traditional marathons are not difficult enough! He told me at the top of Le Conte that that was the most difficult thing he’d ever done.”

Myers knew the trip up with Tinnell would be rough, but he relied on advice from one of his hunting buddies to keep him on task.

“One of the guys I hunt with is an Army vet who served in Vietnam,” Myers explained. “I’ve been in the woods with him numerous times and when something would go south, I’d be ready to go back to the house and he would say, ‘We’re infantry. We’re going to adapt and overcome.’ I entered May 15 with that attitude: This isn’t going to go smoothly. Things will happen, but we’re going to adapt on the fly and complete the task.”

It was a grueling seven-and-a-half hours up the mountain. Tinnell wore out a new set of gloves on the way up as he pushed the wheels whenever he could. Other times, the group had to “bench press” him and his chair over 3-foot-tall boulders along the trail. The team welded a crossbar behind the chair so that more than one person could push while going up.

Near the top, the trail opens to a grassy clearing where hikers simply stroll the last few yards to the lodge. It was perfect weather for a perfect day: 66 degrees and one of the clearest days Le Conte had seen all season. When you’ve made it to the clearing, you’re home free and Tinnell’s party was thrilled to have arrived there. Myers said that last mile was slow motion because everyone was fatigued and they knew they had time to spare before darkness set in.

Once Tinnell and his party reached the clearing, the entire lodge staff and guests for that night awaited them, clapping and cheering. They took pictures with Tinnell, peppering him with questions, eager to be a part of his experience. He and his party of hikers were lauded like rock stars!

The first person to congratulate Tinnell was Line, the lodge’s general manager who had urged Tinnell to reconsider.

Nathan Kirkham, assistant site manager at Le Conte Lodge, wrote the following on the staff’s May 16, 2013, blog:

“Terry Tinnell, with the help of 14 strong friends and a service dog named, Cocoa, became the only person we know of who reached Le Conte Lodge in a wheelchair.”

Kirkham’s blog went on to echo Line’s warnings of the treacherous conditions of climbing the mountain.

“The success rate for such attempts is abysmal in this inherently dangerous pursuit,” Kirkham wrote. “Le Conte Lodge general manager Tim Line, who has been affiliated with the lodge since 1977, can remember no other happy endings when someone attempted the top in a wheelchair.”

The words offer a chilling reminder that the feat Tinnell’s crew accomplished is not for everyone. The hikers who had passed the group earlier that day knew that, too. Other hikers told Tinnell they heard he was on his way up and wanted to meet him. Day hikers, who had planned to go back down the mountain that afternoon, waited around until they’d had a chance to meet him.

“A lot of the people had passed us on the trail, but I didn’t expect them to be waiting for us or to give us such a warm welcome,” said Tinnell’s daughter, Erin.

“It was beautiful,” she went on. “That moment when we got there and saw those people applauding us, we knew we did it. We weren’t just proud of ourselves, but other people noticed what we did, too. We wanted to let people know if something happens in your life that isn’t so great, you can still live your life and do things you’ve always wanted to do.”

“It was overwhelming,” Erin recalled. “We were exhausted and tired but had a feeling of accomplishment. People we didn’t know were saying “congratulations,” and that they were glad we were there. It was gratifying to see how it impacted their lives. All these people were telling me afterward that my dad is such an inspiration and a hero, and I’m thinking he’s always been my hero.”

Tinnell spent time talking with several of the guests, as well as the lodge staff and then, his family celebrated his 55th birthday in style. “We unwound pretty good that night,” Myers laughed.

HALFWAY POINT

The next morning, however, they had to go back the way they’d come.

“I thought going up would be a complete effort and coming down would be a breeze,” Tinnell recalled. “It did take more effort going up, but coming down was equally challenging.”

Heading back down the mountain, he was inches from going over the side of Mount Le Conte, bringing to mind all the worrisome warnings that go along with attempting such a climb-wheelchair or not.

On the trip up the mountain, people had pulled and pushed Tinnell. Going down, members of the group walked in front, pointing out rocks and ditches in the terrain, while one person guided the chair.

“I had the thought coming down that I was so tired from the day before that if the chair got away from me, I didn’t know if I could control it,” said Myers, who was the first to push Tinnell on the way down. “I was that fatigued. It wasn’t long afterward that one of the young people almost lost Terry.”

Tinnell recalled the scare.

“We were about 3 to 4 inches from the edge of the trail on the left,” he remembered. “It dropped off about 80-90 feet there. The right tire hit a rock and threw me up, causing the front wheel to turn sharply to the left. I started over the side of the mountain, but I saw a tree limb and grabbed it with both hands, letting go of the chair. The guy pushing me grabbed the same limb with his left hand and the chair with his right. We dangled in the air.”

Five members of the group bolted to the rescue, while Tinnell’s wife and sister were in shock. It struck them that all the beauty of the previous day could be erased in a heartbeat.

“I didn’t think I was going to die, but I thought if something happened, it would be painful and really bad,” Tinnell said.

Working together, his group steered both men and the chair back to safety. They collected themselves, tried to calm down and ultimately carried on.

“It got our adrenaline going, but we all had a successful outcome,” Tinnell said. He lived to tell the one about hanging from a tree limb 80 or 90 feet up.

Tinnell defied the long odds, but whenever the subject comes up, he first gives credit to his crew of family and close friends who joined him on the journey. The most important member of that party is his wife, Cindy, with whom he always wanted to share the experience.

Now, Tinnell has an answer when someone asks: “What’s the most beautiful place you’ve been?”

“Of course, at this point, it’s Mount Le Conte,” he said laughing. “In addition to the location, it was the process of what that group of folks did for me in combination with the sheer beauty of that mountain and the Smoky Mountains as a whole.

“Our motto was FFA,” Tinnell continued. “If you choose the right friends, family and attitude, you can climb any mountain.”