Tim Wood #40: 'Le Conte held his heart'

Debora Wood designed Tim's gravestone to feature the four peaks of Le Conte

 
 When Tim and Debora Wood were married in 1982, they honeymooned in Gatlinburg and decided on the spur of the moment to take a hike up the Alum Cave Bluff trail.
 "We had no water, no snacks, nothing to prepare for an 11-mile hike," Debora said. "I think we both had on ridiculous shoes. We made it to Alum Cave, where we discussed heading back to the car. We decided to press on, and within a few minutes on the trail about 40 feet ahead, was a black bear. We stopped to see what he was going to do, and he eventually climbed up the mountain and left the trail.
 "We continued on, telling ourselves we would get a Coke from the machine at the Lodge. Ha-ha! We eventually reached the Lodge, thirsty and hungry. There were the most wonderful smells wafting from the kitchen as they were preparing for dinner. Fresh butter was on the tables and baskets of cookies. No one was around, so we didn't think they would mind too much if we took a cookie. We found the water pump and drank and ate our cookie.
 "Out of shape and unused to this type of strenuous hiking, we were miserable for the next couple of days. So began our life and love of the Smokies."

Tim kept hiking despite cancer 

 Tim worked for General Electric in Louisville, Ky., and his family made annual vacation trips to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. "He would hike other trails—he liked the Greenbrier area also—but Le Conte held his heart," Debora said.
 About 15 years ago, they began coming twice a year, in February and November. "He never missed a hike, even in rain and snow," Debora said. "There were a few times we looked at the forecast just so he could hike in the snow."
 Tim didn't keep count of how many times he climbed Le Conte, but with Debora's recollections, we have estimated 30-40 times—"at least four times with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer," she said. "Such a trooper and lover of life. He fought really hard to live."
 On July 10, 2018, Tim died at age 67, and he was laid to rest in Beech Grove Cemetery near Shrewsbury, Kentucky. Debora designed his gravestone to feature a granite profile of the ridgeline of Mount Le Conte—as viewed from the Park Vista Hotel in Gatlinburg, where he always requested a room facing the mountain.
 "Tim was a man of many talents—sailor, photographer, artist, nature-lover, and hiker," Debora said, "but most of all a great husband and dad."

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Up and Adam: All 6 trails in 24 hours

Here's one way to do the Tour Le Conte, starting in Cherokee Orchard and ending in Greenbrier Cove. The colors indicate elevation. (Map by John Northrup)

 

Adam Gravett, Adam Williamson, Adam Ozment

 Have you ever climbed all six trails to Mount Le Conte? For most of us, that's a lifetime goal. On the other hand, there are a few unstoppable hikers who have completed the entire "Tour de Le Conte" in a single day.
 It's been done at least 30 times, four of those by John Northrup, the manager of LeConte Lodge. He wrote about the challenge in a 2017 post on the Lodge blog, High on Le Conte.
 On May 1, 2019, three friends who answer to the same name—Adam Gravett, Adam Ozment, and Adam Williamson—completed the Tour Le Conte, hiking 44.5 miles in 23 hours and one minute. If you want to follow along, here is a RELIVE animation of their odyssey. They started at 2 a.m. at Newfound Gap and hiked up the Boulevard Trail, down Trillium Gap, up Bullhead, down Rainbow Falls, shuttled over to U.S. 441, ascended Alum Cave and descended Brushy Mountain to finish in the midnight darkness in Greenbrier Cove.
 Local TV stations interviewed the Adams to get their story. Watch on WATE-TV or WBIR-TV, or read about them in Blue Ridge Outdoors magazine.
 The Tour de Le Conte is also known as the TLC, the Tour Le Conte Challenge (my preference), the 24 Hours of Le Conte, or the Le Conte Triple Summit. 
 The first successful TLC was November 7, 1993, by Lee Lewis and the late Mike Povia. Amy Povia has her dad's completion time (22:29) tattooed on her wrist for inspiration. Lewis (who has climbed Le Conte well over 100 times) wrote on Facebook in 2018:

"When Mike and I did this 25 years ago, we didn't have any inkling of what a gauntlet would be thrown down. We hiked it because it had not been done before (to our knowledge) and why not. Our record, although maybe not the fastest because we hiked it, we did not run it, cut any switchbacks, or take off-trail shortcuts, but we still did it within our self-imposed time limit of 24 hours, and that record stood for 17 years. We had John Mansfield sign off on our homemade sheet at the Lodge and Tom Brosch sign off at the trail heads/shuttle points to prove we had been there. We did not have cell phones or even camera documentation, and because of that we enjoyed every step, we enjoyed conversation, we enjoyed our friendship—we hiked."

 I keep an informal list of completers on the sidebar of this blog. (If you're reading this on a mobile device, you'll need switch to "View web version" to see the sidebar.)
 The fastest known time for the TLC is 8:35:34 by Luke Bollschweiler in 2019. He covered 47.5 miles, up Rainbow Falls, down Trillium Gap, up Bullhead, down Alum, up the Boulevard, and down Brushy Mountain. 
 He broke the 2011 record of 10:03:41 by park ranger David Worth, who wrote on his blog:

"I enjoy these sort of challenges because at the end of the day there are no cheering crowds and no finishers' medals. You are alone with the trail and the truth of the situation. Quiet moments on the trail and an honest sense of fatigue are reward enough. There are purists who argue against these speed hikes and runs, viewing them as nothing more than a continuation of our hurry-up culture. For me, a day of trail-running is more than a simple race against time. It's how I've come to appreciate the trail the most. Thoughts of grocery lists, school work, and everything else yet to be done take a back seat. I'm able to experience the trail directly, without mental chatter."

 Only a few others have broken the 12-hour barrier. 
 Other than Northrup, I know of only two hikers who have completed the full TLC more than once: Brian Thomas and Shawn Carson. In 2011, they completed 45.7 miles in 22:02 (Rainbow to Trillium, Bullhead to Alum, Boulevard to Brushy). In 2015, they changed course (Boulevard to Bullhead, Rainbow to Trillium, Brushy to Alum) and covered 46.4 miles in 19:32. Thomas has a blog called LeConte24.com that's a great resource for anyone who is considering the challenge.