#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

Terra Incognita: Untangling the Le Conte name

On this 1863 map, Mount Le Conte was still labeled as Bullhead. The name is hard to read over the terrain. Look closely above the K in SMOKY. The names for Clingmans Dome, Mount Mingus, Mount Guyot, Laurel Top, Snow Bird Mountain, and Max Patch were already settled by this time.

Joseph Le Conte in 1875

 When Marty Polk signed in at LeConte Lodge on Oct. 2, 2019, she left an intriguing comment in the logbook, identifying herself as a "distant niece of Joseph Le Conte."
 Joseph Le Conte was the namesake of Mount Le Conte, according to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. However, he made no such claim in his autobiography, which casts doubts on the the government registry. We know that Joseph was not shy about putting his name on mountains, because his book uses the caption Le Conte Dome for Yosemite's South Dome, which is now known as Mount Starr King. (Thomas Starr King was a Unitarian preacher who was instrumental in the movement to establish Yosemite National Park.)
 The Tennessee mountain we call Le Conte was known as Walasi'yi or Mylegony to the Cherokee and Bullhead to early settlers, until Princeton professor Arnold Guyot renamed it sometime after his 1859 and 1860 expeditions to measure the Great Smoky Mountains. In hindsight, it appears that Guyot intended to honor Joseph's older brother, Professor John Le Conte. See this footnote by Ken Wise in the book Terra Incognita: An Annotated Bibliography of the Great Smoky Mountains.

 While Guyot, Samuel Buckley, and Gen. Thomas Clingman explored the mountaintops of the Smokies, the scientifically trained Le Conte brothers were supposedly responsible for monitoring a stationary barometer in Waynesville, N.C., that was used to calibrate the summit measurements. 
 Apparently, Joseph was elsewhere. In his autobiography, Joseph never mentions Waynesville, Bullhead, nor the expeditions of Guyot, Buckley, and Clingman. He respected Professor Guyot on an academic level and described him as "a lifelong friend," so if he had been involved in this project, he certainly would have mentioned it. 
 In 1858, at age 35, Joseph wrote that he climbed "Black Mountain (Mount Mitchell)*, the highest peak in the Appalachians, 6,710 feet high." If it was a clear day, he might have seen Bullhead 66 miles west. If not, then he probably never laid eyes on the mountain that made him famous. Since he spent the summer of 1858 in the N.C. mountains, it is possible that he had a role in Buckley's survey, which measured Bullhead at 6,670 feet.

John Le Conte

 In 1859, Guyot measured Bullhead at 6,613, missing the modern standard of 6,593 by just 20 feet. Meanwhile, Joseph Le Conte said he spent most of that year in Columbia, S.C.
 The Le Conte brothers were from a Hugenot family who fled from France because of religious persecution. John Le Conte (1818-1891) and Joseph Le Conte (1823-1901) were raised on a rice plantation in coastal Georgia. Both graduated from Franklin College (the forerunner of the University of Georgia) and earned MD's in New York. They taught at South Carolina College during the Civil War era and moved west in 1869, when John became the first president of the University of California.
 Joseph became a professor of geology and was a charter member of the Sierra Club along with his friend John Muir. You'll find Joseph's name on 13,930-foot Mount Le Conte in California, the Le Conte Glacier in Alaska, and Le Conte Falls in Yosemite. Because he was a slaveowner, his name was removed in 2016 from Yosemite's Le Conte Memorial Lodge (now known as the Yosemite Conservation Heritage Center.
 His son Joseph Nisbet Le Conte (1870-1950) succeeded Muir as president of the Sierra Club in 1915 and was noted for his maps and photographs, which caught the eye of Ansel Adams.

Le Conte means "the tale." The Le Conte brothers usually spelled their name with a space, which is how Mount Le Conte is labeled on USGS topographic maps and registered with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. However, the space is often omitted in modern usage, such as the name of Tennessee's LeConte Lodge. I've chosen to keep the space in the name of this blog.

* The name of Mount Mitchell was not settled until after Dr. Elisha Mitchell was buried on the summit in 1858. The official elevation is now 6,684 feet. Dr. Mitchell measured it in 1835 at 6,476—proving that North Carolina outranked New Hampshire (Mount Washington was listed as 6,234 then and 6,288 now) as the highest point in the eastern U.S.

A busy year for our most popular national park

 The Great Smoky Mountains National Park set a record for the number of visitors with 12.55 million in 2019, according to the National Park Service. That's up by 1.13 million since 2018. Much of the increase is attributed to the long-awaited opening of the "Missing Link" on the Foothills Parkway. 
 Among the 62 national parks, the Great Smokies led the Grand Canyon (5.97 million, down 0.41), Rocky Mountain (4.67, up 0.08), Zion (4.48, up 0.16), Yellowstone (4.02, down 0.09), Yosemite (4.42, up 0.41), Acadia (3.44, down 0.10), Grand Teton (3.41, down 0.08), and Olympic (3.24, up 0.14).
 If you include national monuments, parkways, and all 418 units in the National Park system, the most popular in 2019 were the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (15.00 million, down 0.22 from 2018), the Blue Ridge Parkway (14.97, up 0.28), the Great Smokies (12.55), the St. Louis Gateway Arch (9.40, up 0.16), the Lincoln Memorial (7.81, up 0.01), and Lake Mead/Hoover Dam (7.5 million, down 0.08). The Blue Ridge Parkway holds the all-time record with 21.54 million visits in 2002.
 The report includes a category for Concessioner Lodging, which in the Smokies represents the number of overnight guests at LeConte Lodge. That total for 2019 was 10,955, down 208 from 2018. Compare that to the 12 million who visited the Smokies, and those of us who stayed at the Lodge are one in a thousand.

Le Stonehenge: The dawn of 2020

The dawn of 2020, as photographed from Myrtle Point by Chris Maulden. In a Stonehenge alignment, the sun rose in the notch of Deep Gap south of Cold Mountain, 37 miles east/southeast. That's Cold Mountain just to the left of the sun, and the horizon to the right includes Shining Rock, Black Balsam, Richland Balsam, and Waterrock Knob. The silhouetted ridge just below the sunrise is the Jumpoff and Mount Kephart.

Welcome to the Century Club, Linten Atkins

The Lodge is closed for winter, but that didn't stop Linten Atkins

 Linten Atkins of Newport, Tenn., climbed Mount Le Conte more than a dozen times in 2019, and on New Year's Eve he hiked up the Bullhead Trail and celebrated his 100th trip to the mountaintop.

 Linten is the 71st hiker with 100 lifetime hikes documented on the Le Conte Log honor roll. Others who reached the milestone in 2019 are Steve Odom, Gary White, Jeff Wadley, and Smoky Mountains Hiking Club president Brian Worley.
 Linten, 65, is the manager of the water system for the town of Newport.

Fastest known time for the Tour de Le Conte

Luke Bollschweiler averaged over 5 mph on a 47.5-mile route that climbed 11,086 feet

 Congratulations to Luke Bollschweiler of Maryville, Tennessee, who ran the six trails of Mount LeConte on Dec. 27 with the fastest known time for the Tour de Le Conte.
 Luke covered 47.5 miles in 8 hours, 35 minutes, and 34 seconds. Starting at 7 a.m., he went up Rainbow Falls, down Trillium Gap, up Bullhead, and down Alum Cave. After a car shuttle to Newfound Gap, he went up the Boulevard, and down Brushy Mountain to finish in mid-afternoon. The previous record was 10:03:41 by Dave Worth in 2011. 
 It was the second time Luke has broken one of Dave's records. This past March, he ran the 72 miles of the Appalachian Trail through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 14:28:33, which was 22 minutes faster than Worth did it in 2011. That race is called the Smokies Challenge Adventure Run. A video crew followed his trek and produced a film called "Ultra Man."

 According to an interview last year in the Maryville Daily Times, Luke and his wife Sarah moved to Tennessee in 2000 when he took a job in Maryville. He grew up in Idaho and went to Brigham Young University in Utah.
 This was the 12th time in 2019 (and the 36th time since 1993) that the Tour de Le Conte has been successfully completed in 24 hours. Luke is also the first to complete the Tour in daylight. Most completers have done at least two of the trails in the dark. 
 The list of completers is on the sidebar of this blog, below the Le Conte Honor Roll. If you are reading on your phone, you will need to switch to "View Web Version" to see the sidebar. You can also click on the "Tour de Le Conte" tab on our masthead to read previous stories about the Tour.

Their 44-mile day raised over $7,000 for better trails

Dr. Nancy East and Chris Ford celebrate the completion of their Tour de Le Conte.
Click here to make a donation to the Trails Forever program.

 Congratulations to Dr. Nancy Mercure East and Chris Ford for hiking the Tour de Le Conte on Friday, Oct. 25, and for raising thousands of dollars to renovate trails on the mountain.
 Nancy and Chris dedicated their hike to the Friends of the Smokies' Trails Forever program, which has renovated the Trillium Gap Trail to Grotto Falls, with more work planned next year on the upper sections. This is the same crew that did such an outstanding job on the Alum Cave Trail in 2015 and 2016. Their goal was $5,000, and thanks to the generosity of folks like you, donations have topped $7,000. 

In September 2020, Nancy and Chris broke the record for the fastest "Tour de Smokies," hiking 948 miles of national park trails in 29 days and 10 hours. This was a fundraiser for a safe hiking initiative in the Smokies. It's not too late to donate.

 Nancy and Chris set foot on the Bullhead Trail at 2 a.m., hiked 15 miles before sunrise, and finished their 44-mile trek before nightfall in a time of 16:13—giving her the fastest known time among the five women who have hiked all of Le Conte's trails in a span of 24 hours. They kept a pace of 2.9 miles per hour. See her blog for details of the hike or for how you might prepare for such a challenge. Click here to read the Smoky Mountain News story on her hike.

 Nancy is a veterinarian in Waynesville, N.C., and a mother of three who is known on the trails as "Seal Mom." With three visits to LeConte Lodge within 11 hours, she now has climbed Mount Le Conte 19 times. Chris, 51, a resident of Knoxville, is retired from the Air Force.

Nancy and Chris started up Bullhead (top left), and their route continued across Mount Le Conte, down the Boulevard and southbound on the Appalachian Trail to Newfound Gap (bottom), up Alum to Le Conte Lodge, down Rainbow Falls, up Trillium Gap to the Lodge, and down Brushy Mountain (top right).

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IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON YOUR PHONE, you may need to switch from the mobile view to full screen (iPhone users click on "View web version" below) to see our all-time Honor Roll and the list of TLC completers.

'Grand finale' for grandfathered reservations

The first snow of the season fell Halloween night at LeConte Lodge. That's more than a month later than the record for the earliest snow: Sept. 24 in 1985. This was the 9th time in the last 11 years that the first snow has come in October. (Photo credit: highonleconte.com)

 There have been plenty of nostalgic comments in the LeConte Lodge logbook in recent weeks from hikers who may have been making their last overnight stays at the Lodge.
 Many of these guests have enjoyed standing or "grandfathered" reservations, which allowed those who have been coming since 1998 to carry over the same date from one year to the next, without going through the annual lottery and waiting list. This made it convenient for families and groups to schedule annual trips, but it also meant that a third of the season might fill up even before the general public had an opportunity to request reservations.
 For the past several years, the managers of the Lodge and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park have been working together to phase out the standing reservations, according to this report on WVLT-TV.
 In theory, the end of standing reservations should make it easier for first-time visitors to get a cabin, although the Lodge is already fully booked for 2020. The 2020 season runs eight months, opening March 23 and closing Nov. 24. 

 "Last trip," wrote Rick Hobson of Hilton Head, S.C., as he signed in Oct. 20 on his 36th visit to the Lodge. "Thank you all!"

 "Last year for reservations!" wrote Aaron and David Cain on Oct. 20 as they logged trips #20 and #32. "Been a great run!" 
 Norm Harber signed in Oct. 3 with #32. "Last group hike," he wrote. "Started in 1992. Been amazing!" 
 The Williams family signed in Nov. 9 with #20, "Last of the grandfathered years😞." 
 A group from St. John's Episcopal Church (evidently in South Carolina) signed in Oct. 25 with a note indicating they have been coming since 1964. "End of a wonderful tradition," wrote Margaret Anne Dubose, making her 17th trip. 
 Aimee Bridges of Raleigh, N.C., signed in Oct. 19 with "24 years!" Three days later, Dawn Eipeldauer of Oak Ridge, Tenn., left a note saying, "50 years. Love!" 
 The Fleming family—Dwight, Laura, Barrett, and Margaret—logged in Oct. 12 with #38, and wrote, "The grand finale!"
 Standing reservations date back to the 1980s, according to this 1989 clipping I found in the Raleigh News & Observer. At that time, standing reservations filled one-third of the season. By 1998, according to a story in the Cincinnati Enquirer, half of all guests came with standing reservations.

Following the footsteps of the Tour trailblazers

Katie Baker (right) with a friend who hiked with her up Brushy Mountain Trail

 Katie Baker wasn't going to let rain spoil her 40th birthday parade. That was the day she intended to complete the Tour de Le Conte—hiking all six trails that lead to Mount Le Conte in a span of 24 hours. 
 Accompanied by friends, Katie started up the Brushy Mountain trail at 5:07 a.m. on Oct. 19, then went down Rainbow Falls, up Bullhead, down Boulevard, and up Alum to LeConte Lodge for the third time in 12 hours. The rain intensified as she hiked down the Trillium Gap trail and made her way behind the torrent of Grotto Falls. At 10:02 p.m., after 44 miles and nearly 17 hours of hiking, she reached the Trillium trailhead on Roaring Fork Road. The Trillium Gap trail actually continues another 2.4 miles to Cherokee Orchard, but by that point the storm had made it dangerous to continue, so she and her hiking partners decided to stop there. 
 Does that count as a completed Tour de Le Conte? 
 The question stumped me, since there are no written rules for the Tour de Le Conte. The spirit of the challenge is to hike all six trails that lead to the top of the mountain, which she did. All the other routes start at roadside trailheads, so to me, there's nothing wrong with stopping at the first road you reach coming down.
 I've asked other completers for their perspectives. One of them told me that back in 1993, the original completers of the Tour de Le Conte, Lee Lewis and Mike Povia, also stopped at the same place Katie did. 
 When I initially reported that Katie's completion time of 16:55 was the fastest known time for a female, she emailed me apologetically. "I don't deserve that title," she wrote. "Had we done the last two miles to Cherokee Orchard, I think it would have been the fastest, but I am happy we stopped at Roaring Fork. It was becoming unsafe out there.
 "If this means we didn't 'do' the Tour, I understand. Having traveled so far and crossing the summit three times should count for something. I hope this makes it right in the eyes of the Le Conte family, and I hope a gal comes along soon who crushes the record."
 Her wish came true six days later, when Dr. Nancy East completed her Tour in 16:13, including the extra miles between the Roaring Fork and Cherokee Orchard trailheads.
 I would appreciate opinions from the hiking community on how to define the Tour de Le Conte. For now, I am crediting Katie with finishing the Tour, but I am not posting her time on the list of completers since it would be unfair to compare it to others who went the extra miles. Your comments on this are welcome below. 
 To me, the gap at the end of Katie's hike is similar to the one between Newfound Gap and the Alum Cave trailhead. We accept that most completers will take a car between those trailheads, even though Nathaniel Klumb recently used a bicycle for that section.
 To me, anyone who completes all six trails from the trailheads to the Lodge has earned Tour de Le Conte bragging rights.
 Katie's respect for "the Le Conte family" comes from deep roots in the Smokies. She is the great-granddaughter of Fanny Cable Carringer (1894-1986) of Cades Cove. Katie is a homeschooling mother of three, and a published author who has climbed Mount Le Conte five times.

WHAT SHOULD WE CALL THE TOUR? 

 Tour de Le Conte has become the popular name for the six-hike challenge. Personally, I  prefer it without the "de", since Tour Le Conte has a lyrical cadence that matches Tour de France. Also, I like 24 Hours of Le Conte as a nice parallel for 24 Hours of Le Mans, the French auto race featured in the film, Ford vs. Ferrari. 

THE 5-TRAIL TOUR: A WORTHY ACCOMPLISHMENT

 Some hikers disregard the Brushy Mountain Trail as part of the Le Conte network because it connects to the Trillium Gap trail so far below the summit. Still, the other five trails form a worthy challenge that deserves recognition. 

 In 1999, Ann Marie Otis and one of her students at Christian Academy of Knoxville, Katie Felde, completed the five highest trails in 18:30—then made it to school the following day.
 In 2016, Minta Ray and Taylor Drake successfully hiked the five highest trails, covering 39 miles in 19 hours. At the end, they went up and down Alum. 
 Ed Wright's journal mentions a man named Kent LaVoi and a friend named Brant or Brandon from Sevierville who attempted the tour on Nov. 25, 1997. Kent signed in twice at the Lodge but evidently did not make the third loop.

Putting a Fleur de Lis on the Tour de Le Conte

Nathaniel Klumb at Cliff Tops, early in his 51.7-mile jaunt

 Congratulations to Nathaniel Klumb from Louisiana for completing a jumbo version of the Tour de Le Conte.
 Nathaniel, a computer programmer from Baton Rouge, hiked and biked 51.7 miles in 19 hours and 18 minutes on Oct. 13-14, not only covering all six trails to Mount Le Conte but also including all the spur trails. He even pre-positioned a bike at Newfound Gap and rode it down to the Alum Cave trailhead—a 4.4-mile interval where many hikers catch a car. "Pedaled just once to start rolling," he said. 
 Click here to visualize his route. 
 He started at 3:15 p.m. on Sunday Oct. 13 in Greenbrier, climbed the Brushy Mountain Trail, visited Cliff Tops for sunset, and descended Bullhead as night fell. At Cherokee Orchard, he backtracked for a mile for a Gatorade resupply, climbed Trillium Gap in the dark and descended on the Boulevard, with side trips to Myrtle Point and the Jumpoff. 
 After the bike segment, Nathaniel climbed Alum Cave trail at daybreak and finished the Rainbow Falls trail at 10:33 a.m. on Monday Oct. 14.
 Nathaniel's extra mileage matches the route taken by John Northrup in 2010, who included the side trails on the first of his four successful Tours, completing 50 miles in 16:48.