Mt. LeConte Madness

I have a great book, Great Smoky Mountains National Park Scavenger Hike Adventures, which highlights various hikes in the park you can tackle with your kids.  The hikes are rated in difficulty with LeConte being rated, “Extremely Extreme!  Even your high school gym teacher would be challenged by this trail!”  Folks, they do not lie.  It is a strenuous hike, round trip, with the added bonus of some exposed areas where they have drilled cable into the side of the mountain to hold onto while you hike (before you think I’m a irresponsible parent for taking my kids on a hike like this, it’s not terribly dangerous, unless you’re being careless),  The payoff is amazing scenery the entire way up (unless you’re socked in by fog, which we were) and the unique geological features for which the Alum Cave Trail is famous.

The kids, well, they were hiking machines!  I have never seen them hike so strongly and with so few complaints.  My favorite moment of the entire weekend was when Paige told me, “I like taking long hikes with you.  We get to hang out and talk about all kinds of stuff together.”

Hikes lend themselves to difficult conversations with your kids because you both have to focus on walking the trail versus looking at each other while you speak, which can sometimes encourage them to open up a bit more about the hard stuff.  This day, however, was only filled with conversation about favorite memories on previous hikes, how Alum Cave has been used to extract Epsom salts and during the Civil War, saltpeter, for making gunpowder, the oldest people to hike the Alum Cave Trail (a woman hiked it on her 92nd birthday and a man hiked it when he was 93!!), and which animal you would most want to be, if you could be another type for a day, and why you chose it.

We reached the summit around 3:00 p.m., then waited until after 3:30, when the hunt officially started, to take our requisite photograph and start the trek back down.  Fortunately, when we finally had cell reception descending, we learned that the LeConte challenge was in fact on the list again! We were off to a strong start!

On the way home, the kids came up with a poem since it was on the list of activities for the hunt.  It had to touch on a threat to the park.  Here’s what they came up with collaboratively:

Threats to the wilderness

But only sometimes

Animals, but unlike other animals

Like monkeys, but smarter?

They are not dogs nor cats

They sometimes litter

which harms our national parks

What are they?

It was a short night of sleep for everyone after we researched some clues and hit the sack.  A couple of the question’s answers were found in the music videos Tremont makes with their student groups. The videos are really creative and are a prime example of why I would love to send some of our students to this amazing place one day (which is exactly the sort of stuff we hope the money from our fundraiser, 1500K for Shining Rock, will go towards as we grow the program).  Here’s one of my favorites below that you should watch this instant, preferably with your kids.  No really, watch it, it’s that awesome and entertaining!  **Note:  If you’re reading this on your phone, you might not be able to see the link.

Way cool, right?!The next morning, we were up before the sun rose, hitting all the areas in the park that time would allow, to answer as many of the eighty questions as we could.  The kids were on fire! I was a little concerned that Teagan, our dear friend, would think we were all lunatics and want to go home at some point.  I should have known better.  He was just as determined as the rest of us!  I knew delusion had set in though when we were hiking along and he turned around looking for Larry, who was a short distance behind the rest of us, and asked, “Where did Dad go?”  We got a good laugh out of it and told him we had clearly kept him away from his family too long. 🙂

If you had a team member under the age of 10, you got points for picking them up and posing with them in front of a park entrance sign!

Sharp-Lobed Hepatica were abundant on the Cove Hardwood Nature Trail.  Mountain folklore tells farmers to get ready for planting when hepatica appears.

We were fortunate enough to come across an Appalachian Trail thru hiker, “Seeker”at Newfound Gap.  We shared a bag of trail mix with him and earned 40 points (and we would have gladly treated him to the trail mix even if it didn’t garner points, by the way!)

Definitely on the list of things I’ve never done before yesterday–posing in a wild boar trap!

The clock ticked rapidly and we were back at Tremont in no time, handing over our answer sheets to the judges.  They fed us a wonderful dinner while they tallied the scores.  I can’t say enough about the staff at Tremont.  Everyone from Jennifer Jones, the CEO, to the newest naturalists, are nothing but warm and welcoming every time we visit.  It’s a special place in many, many ways.

I could tell the kids were eager to know if we placed, and if the truth be known, my heart was pounding with anticipation too!  While it ultimately didn’t matter how we ranked, because we had an amazing weekend of experiential learning and quality time together, I knew the kids would be beside themselves if we placed in the top ten.  Imagine our excitement when they announced, “First place goes to the Shining Rock Falcons!”  My children inherited my gene for embarrassment of public displays of anything overly emotional, so they politely and sheepishly approached John DiDiego, Tremont’s education director, to receive their award.  I knew they were flipping out inside though!

We did it!