Remembering the hottest days ever on Le Conte

 The recent 100-degree heat wave across the South is a reminder that for decades, the thermometer at LeConte Lodge never topped 80 degrees Fahrenheit. (Grace McNicol's journal from 1983 mentions that the record high was 80 "years ago.")
 Then on June 29, 2012, this happened: 

 The next day, it hit 81.5. It was too hot for the llamas to work, so a helicopter had to be used to get fresh supplies to the Lodge. 
 With deference to global warming, I'm glad to report that the mountaintop hasn't come close to 80 since 2012. Over the past seven years, the high has been 77 in the summer of 2019.
 In case you are wondering, the all-time lows are minus-32 in January 1985, minus-26 in 1982 and 1983, and minus-24 in 2015.
 Here are the weather records from LeConte Lodge:

Can you help solve the riddles of the logbooks?

 Admiral Richard Byrd was a great explorer, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he might have visited Le Conte Lodge in its early years, since he was friends with Arno Cammerer and other leaders of the national park movement.
 But the admiral died in 1956, so I am assuming someone else signed his name in the LeConte Lodge logbook on July 19, 2019, with the comment: "Long Live the Confederancy!"

 Several of the regular hikers of Le Conte send me snapshots of the logbooks so I can update my honor roll of those who have climbed the mountain at least 50 times. Admiral Byrd claims to have "over 100," but the real admiral was prone to exaggeration, so who knows if this can be substantiated? 
 If you know "Admiral Byrd" and he has indeed climbed the mountain over 100 times, ask him to email me at LeConteLog@gmail.com so I can add him to the honor roll.
 It's not unprecedented to find a prank in the Logbook. On Ed Wright's 689th hike in 1994, he noticed an unfamiliar name had signed in at 6:30 that morning: Charlotte McDowell, #426, from Waynesville, N.C. Her note said she was doing two trips on the Greenbrier Trail. Ed knew there is no such trail (although the Brushy Mountain trail does start in Greenbrier), and he certainly would have met anyone with hundreds of climbs. Ed figured out that it was a joke by the Lodge staff.
 Other times, people sign in with only their first or last names. If you can vouch for any of these people, ask them to email me at LeConteLog@gmail.com.

The Wessners signed in July 15, 2019, with 224 and 215 climbs. Almost a year later, on July 13, 2020, they signed in with 25. 

Rick and Vera signed in with 100 climbs on March 19, 2019. On that date, staff and key volunteers were getting the Lodge ready to open.

Stacy and Trever from Sevierville signed in Nov. 2, 2019, with #192 right after Ed Jones with #411. Not only do I need their last name, but I'd also like to know if this is supposed to be #192 each. A few couples list their combined total. 

McKay Wilding from Brigham City, Utah, signed in June 18, 2019, with #420. Because I have never the WIldings in the logbooks before, I presume this was a joke and I have not added them to the honor roll.

 The LeConte Log is an honor roll, and we operate on the honor system. Unless I have reason to doubt your claim, I will include you here if I can read your number and name on the Logbook.
 If you see any fabrications or exaggerations that need to be corrected or deleted, please let me know. 
 Thanks to everyone who sends me snapshots of the Logbook when you sign in. I don't get up to the Lodge very often—so I depend on folks like you to help me keep the Le Conte Log honor roll up-to-date. Thanks!

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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IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON YOUR PHONE, you will need to switch from the mobile view to full screen (iPhone users click on "View web version" below) to see our Honor Roll and other lists we've accumulated.

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.

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."

Mike Maples #75: Godspeed to our 'Mountain Jedi'

Mike Maples (in hooded jacket) on one of his last trips to Le Conte.
Click here to see his video of the hike.

 When I started this blog in 2016, I emailed Mike Maples and asked him to help me identify hikers who have climbed Mount Le Conte at least 100 times. Knowing how often he hiked, I suspected he might be among them. "I've not been up there that many times," he responded. "Maybe 35 to 40 times over the years."

 As usual, Mike was being modest. I found an old logbook where he  signed in with 75. 
 Mike gave me some helpful hints, like he did for so many hikers who sought his wisdom, perspective, or guidance. Friends called him "the mountain Jedi" for his knowledge of the Great Smoky Mountains, her trails, and relics. Mike was less obsessed with the mountaintops than he was with the families and communities who once lived in the hollows below. He wrote several books about the Smokies.
 For the past few months, Mike has been fighting cancer, and on the morning of Tuesday, March 5, at age 66, he passed from this life. He was an expert on cemeteries in the Park and was buried March 10 at the Huskey Cemetery east of Gatlinburg. 
 Fellow hikers have been posting remembrances. "You touched more people than you will ever know," Brian Brubaker said. "We lost a great park ambassador, historian, story teller and all around great person today. You will be sorely missed. Rest easy my friend."
 Philip Clarkson: "The Smokies lost a great friend today! You were the most interesting person I had the pleasure of meeting. You had so many stories about our beloved mountains!"

—Tom Layton

Carlos Campbell ~120: A visionary for the Park

Many of us caught our first glimpse of the majestic heights of Mount Le Conte
from the Carlos Campbell Overlook on Highway 441 south of Gatlinburg.

A giant of the national park:
 Carlos Campbell

 Carlos Campbell (1892-1978) was one of the founding fathers of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and I knew that he climbed Le Conte frequently, so when I heard that Steve Oliphant was going to visit Campbell's son, I asked him if he could help to document how many times Carlos climbed Le Conte.
 Steve responded with this story from Jim Campbell: "My Dad, Carlos, hiked to the top of Mount Le Conte between 100 and 120 times. He said his dad once asked Harvey Broome how many times he had hiked to the Mt LeConte, and Harvey said "150 times" Carlos asked him how did he get to the top, Harvey said "by a trail", and then Carlos asked "how did you get to the trail?" "By car." 
 Carlos would always tease Harvey Broome who thought there should be no roads or trails. They had a lifelong friendly and warm teasing relationship, despite their differences in providing moderate vs. very limited accessibility to remote mountains. Our Le Conte honor roll lists Harvey with 65, a total I found in one of his hiking journals, probably "Out Under the Skies of the Great Smokies."
 I also found a 1960 story in the Knoxville News-Sentinel where Campbell, at age 68, estimated he had climbed Le Conte 75 to 80 times. He said he has reached  an age when he prefers to ride a horse to Le Conte and walk back. Since Carlos lived another 18 years, his son's estimate of 100 to 120 trips sounds plausible. 
 Steve wrote the opportunity to sit down with Jim Campbell was "one of my more amazing days in my 57 years in Oak Ridge, Tennessee." Mr. Campbell signed a 1960 edition of his father's book "Birth of a National Park" that belonged to Steve's father. "Any history book written since of the GSMNP borrowed heavily from this one," Steve posted on Facebook. "Jim, in his 90's is a treasure of what we call the 'Secret City': Oak Ridge, Tennessee, he knows every person in town. He and my Dad went to the University of Tennessee together in the late 1940's. We "chatted" today for 4 hours, seemed like 20 minutes. I was hoping Jim would tell me his recollections of his Dad's memories of Harvey Broome, Jim Thompson, Dutch Roth, David Chapman, Paul Fink, Horace Albright, Arno Cammerer, Arthur Stupka, Ben Morton, Benton McKaye, Myron Avery, and Colonel Townsend. He didn't. He told me his personal memories first hand of his relationship with all the above. I didn't realize he knew them all and vice versa. His Dad, Carlos Campbell has the best pedigree in the founding of the Smokies. He worked for the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce promoting the Smokies as a potential National Park from 1920 to 1922, then work for Jim Thompson as a photographer assistant carrying his 25 lb tripod into every corner of today's park. Then they both worked for Colonel David C. Chapman at the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association in the late 1920's. The GSMCA was the original organization promoting the Smokies as a National Park on the Tennessee side."

Jim Campbell signs his father's book
 "Birth of a National Park" for Steve Oliphant

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IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON YOUR PHONE, you will need to switch from the mobile view to full screen (iPhone users click on "View web version" below) to see our Honor Roll, where we list dozens of men and women who have climbed Mount Le Conte at least 100 times.

Milestones at the Mountaintop: 2018 and before

 I began researching Le Conte's most relentless climbers in 2012, but it was not until 2019 that I was able to collect thorough information from the sign-in logs at Le Conte Lodge.

 Here are some milestone ascents from previous years.

2018

• DEWEY SLUSHER, has well over 250 ascents through 2018, including July 29, Oct. 4, and Nov. 21.
• LARRY RUSSELL of Sevierville TN, #200 on July 18. 
• GUY CHARLEVILLE of New Orleans LA, #100 on Nov. 22.
• JANICE CHARLEVILLE of New Orleans LA, #100 on Nov. 22. 
• ADAM OZMENT of Mascot TN, June 29. 
• ADAM GRAVETT of Sevierville TN, Aug. 11.
• CINDY WISNIESKI of Gahanna OH, #45 on Sept. 2.
• STEVE BARRS of Knoxville TN, #26 on Sept. 28.
• MIKE KEASER of Heath OH #20-plus on Sept. 28.
• THOMAS KEOHL, #20 on Nov. 4. This was his first trip in at least eight years. He set a personal speed record of 2:42 up the 5-mile Alum Cave Bluff Trail.

2017

• KAREN HATFIELD and RANDY HATFIELD, #40, March 25 (with Mike Maples)
• DEWEY SLUSHER, #230 on March 15.
• GARY WHITE of Alabama, #90 on March 15. 
• CHRIS MAULDEN, on Feb. 11.
• BOB CARR, on Feb. 19. 

2016

• TONY COPE, of New Palestine IN, #34 on April 23. Tony and his wife Susan #20 began climbing Le Conte in 2009. In more recent years, they have been focused on the 900-mile club, but Tony said, "Perhaps someday we will reach #100."
• SUSAN COPE, of New Palestine IN, #20 on April 23.
• DEWEY SLUSHER, Jan. 1. 

2014

• DAVE SCANLON, #982 on Sept. 9.
• LARRY RUSSELL, #100 on Aug. 7. 
• JEFF WADLEY, #88 on May 5. 
• CHRIS MAULDEN, April 12
• DEWEY SLUSHER, Jan. 7, in minus-17 cold.
  
  2013
• TIMOTHY MASSEY, March 2, up Rainbow and down Bullhead, through knee-deep snow. 

2012
• TOM LAYTON, #4 July 22, up Boulevard down Alum.
• CHARLIE BRADY, #23 Oct. 31.

2008

• ED WRIGHT, #1,310 Oct. 25, via Alum.
• RON VALENTINE, est. #3,798 Oct. 25, Alum. 

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."

Guy Charleville #100: From New Orleans to Le Conte

Adam Gravett with Janice and Guy Charleville

 The Le Conte community is grieving over the loss of Guy Charleville, who was fatally injured in a highway crash Dec. 21 in Louisiana, just four weeks after he and his wife Janice celebrated their 100th climb of Mount Le Conte.
 Guy, 64, was a special education teacher for 41 years in New Orleans. Even though the Charlevilles lived over 600 miles from the Great Smoky Mountains, they visited frequently and volunteered at the lodge. Guy's obituary says, "He took every opportunity to be in the beauties of nature that God provided him."
 Adam Gravett met the Charlevilles atop Le Conte on Thanksgiving Day and posted this note on Facebook:

Let me introduce you to Guy and Janice Charleville. They are from New Orleans and love our mountains. Love them so much that they volunteer at the lodge. They were volunteering to help break everything down at end of season this year. They also volunteer to be a substitute caretakers when needed. Since 1984, they have made 100 trips to LeConte Lodge! Bravo, congratulations, and thank you ... for your love of the mountains, 100 trips to the lodge and your willingness to volunteer for something that we all hold so dear.

 The Charlevilles are the 50th and 51st hikers we've documented with at least 100 climbs of Le Conte. Many of those are couples, including longtime lodge employees Pauline and Jack Huff, Lisa and Tim Line, Myrtle and Herrick Brown, and Allyson and Chris Virden.
 Excluding staff, the record for most hikes by a couple is held by Jean Ann and Dr. Jesse "Kip" Miller of Jackson, Tenn., whose 239th hike in 2012 was mentioned in the High On LeConte blog. That was Jean Ann's 79th birthday. Dr. Miller made 99 hikes before he had heart bypass surgery in 2000, and they returned to Le Conte just 24 days later. If you have any update on their totals, please leave a comment.
 Another couple on our list is Shirley and Bo Henry. She had 173 hikes and he had 107 in 1998, when they were last mentioned in Ed Wright's hiking logs.
 Vesna and Erik Plakanis, owners of the Walk in the Woods guide service, both have climbed Le Conte more than 100 times.