Agile Trekker: Alum Cave Trail to Mount LeConte backpack

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
8/13/2022	5.9 miles + 2 extra miles	3 hours 49 minutes	2,659'	1.8 mph	590.8

Parking:

Alum Cave Bluffs Trailhead, Gatlinburg, TN. Arrive early. By 8 am there was only roadside parking available.

Maps:

Great Smoky Mountains National Park East (for navigation)
100 Favorite Trails of the Smokies and the Carolina Blue Ridge (for directions)
Gaia GPS app

Directions:

From parking area, take Alum Cave Trail to Rainbow Falls Trail. Turn right onto Rainbow Falls Trail and hike to Mt LeConte Lodge. Continue to Mt LeConte shelter. We then took the Cliff Top Trail to view the sunset in the evening.

Carolina Mountain Club Challenges:

100 Favorite Trails #23 Mount LeConte via Alum Cave
South Beyond 6000 Challenge, Mount LeConte

A weekend with no chance of thunderstorms! Mount LeConte via Alum Cave is a classic Smokies hike that I knew I wanted to do, plus it's on the 100 Favorite Trails list. Many people like to do this hike and spend the night at the Mt LeConte Lodge at the top. I've been told its very hard to get reservations, because it's very popular. The lodge can only be reached by hiking in. Some people do this is as a day hike. I decided, why not backpack it? You do need a permit to stay at the Mt LeConte shelter, and there are only 12 spots a night, but with planning, I had no problem getting a permit. I was joined by Eva.

When planning backpacking trips, I like to write up an organized document with all of the details of the trip. I took part of an Andrew Skurka course where he covers route planning, so I try to do some of that for backpacking trips. While planning, I learned that parking for this hike is a challenge. People reported that the parking lots were full by 8 am. I came up with a backup alternate route to the shelter, in case we couldn't do this route due to parking. The drawback of arriving so early, is that this is not a long hike! So, we were left with many free hours. We planned accordingly and brought things to fill our time if needed. We ended up getting roadside parking - many cars were already parked roadside by 8 am too.

The hike itself has a lot of variety. At the beginning, the trail is easy and follows a stream, crossing it on log bridges a few times. The trail goes through Arch Rock, which is an interesting formation. Then up to Alum Cave, a tall shallow overhang. Many day hikers turn around here. This trail is busy, busy, busy! I thought after Alum Cave, we'd have fewer people, but we still saw many hikers, coming both ways. Many people were hiking down as we were coming up - presumably after spending the night at the lodge. Either that or they start hiking very early. Past Alum Cave, the hike gets steeper, so we paused periodically to rest. From there we hiked up to the lodge but continued on to the shelter. Due to covid, backpackers aren't required to stay in the shelter, but we didn't know what the tent camping situation would be like. We wanted to get our tents set up early, so we could choose the best spots. We set up our tents behind the shelter in a heavily wooded area. It worked.

We then headed over to the lodge and ate our lunch at some picnic tables. The lodge has potable water from a pump (so you don't have to filter), as well as pit toilets for "the public." They have flushing toilets for paid guests. Water is limited obviously, being that the lodge is on top of a mountain. I went to the lodge office where they sell t-shirts, box lunches, and limited snacks. Credit cards are accepted.

After lunch, we finished unpacking and then took a nap in our tents. I was pretty exhausted from waking up so early and lack of caffeine. I think we may have slept for 2 hours! And then it was almost time for dinner. We ate at the shelter and had a lot of good conversation with the 2 people who were sleeping in the shelter. One was a Smokies 900 miler, and the other was close to becoming one.

Later in the evening, we hiked to Cliff Tops to watch the sunset. It started out as a quiet place with just 3 of us. And then the hoards from the lodge arrived :( There were misbehaving kids hanging over the cliff edge, and parents yelling at them. I wanted to tell them there is a park rule that no talking is allowed at Cliff Tops (making up this rule). This went on for a long, long time. The sunset was pretty, despite lots of clouds and complaining adults.

Off to bed. I don't sleep well in a tent on the first night of a backpack. Too cold / too hot. All night long. But at least I wasn't shivering. The temps up there are excellent this time of year. The lows were 52 I believe at night. And since this hike goes up to 6,593', its cool during the day as well. One excellent thing about the Smokies is that all shelters have bear cables! And these were good bear cables - plenty of them, and very high off the ground.

Be warned, there are an excessive number of sunset photos.