March 18, Day 2 in The Great Smoky Mountains

 If my Aaron weren’t so stupidly in love with me, he may have considered deserting me after what I drug him through today.  We knew the forecast included rain, but undaunted we packed “raingear” and set off on a 10-mile hike up The Alum Cave Trail to the peak of Mt LeConte at 6600 feet.  The trek was beautiful in every way but was also one of the more arduous ones we’ve ventured on.  Following the roar of a clear cascading creek, the trail took us through The Eye of the Needle, a twisting rock formation through which the Civilian Conservation Corps of 1933 built stairs and cable chains to hold onto as we climbed up through a hole in the massive rock wall.  The CCC built bridges and blasted through impenetrable rocky overhangs to forge this stunning trail, and it was truly beautiful.  But it was also steep and arduous, and the weather grew markedly colder as we ascended. Crossing some gaps near the top, the wind blew fiercely and storm clouds raced ferociously across the trail.  Alum Cave intrigued us as it had been mined for saltpeter during the Civil War.  But Alum Cave was only halfway to our destination, so onward and upward we pushed.  Finally we reached the bitterly cold and completely socked in Mt LeConte summit where we refueled with a quick lunch as the rain moved in.  Retreating downhill through gusting wind and driving rain over slick wet rocks, the trail now running with water, was quite exhilarating as was the fact that our hands were icy cold covered only in the drenched and useless gloves we'd donned.  But finally we made it off the mountain and down to warmer temperatures, and at last the rain and wind ceased so that by the time we reached our truck at the bottom we were no worse for wear.  What’s a little soreness and stiffness and cold and fatigue when one has experienced such astounding beauty.  Warm showers, a warm meal, and warm Bambi made all right again. 

Three amazing things:  1- That my Aaron still loves me and vows to follow me wherever I go is one sweet miracle after today’s adventure.  2- We are fairly hardy hikers and campers and have spent some pretty miserable nights in the woods, but when we passed young campers headed up to spend the night on this cold soggy mountain, we were quite amazed.  Oh to be so young and dumb again.  Even I would not find any joy in over-nighting on this peak.  3- Tonight I read to Aaron the history of the fearless and hardy souls who settled in these mountains.  Making ones daily bread through subsistence farming and living from the provisions of the land quite impresses me.  Graveyards at each church we come across are filled with those who died as infants, toddlers, young women in childbirth, and people of all ages from small pox, flu, and any of a multitude of accidents and infections.  How, I wonder, did they stave off scurvy?  How does a mother survive losing half or more of her children in infancy or during childbirth?  How does a young father of three survive losing his wife in childbirth?  How did they send their sons off to fight in the Civil War or WWI with no way of communicating with them for years?  How incredibly intrepid they were. 

Good deed:  Typically I don’t clean up the water bottles or food wrappers left behind by other hikers, but today we felt to bring down some trash left behind on this stellar mountain.  The only thing I refused to retrieve was someone’s full emesis bag which they’d left at a pullout.  These twisting mountain roads can be nauseatingly tortuous.