My Trip to Le Conte Lodge.

I first saw Le Conte Lodge on a hike to the summit of Mount Le Conte in 1974. The mountain is the third highest summit in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the sixth highest in the eastern USA. It is one of the most imposing and impressive mountains on the east coast. The lodge on the summit is a kind of fossil, the type of overnight accommodations one saw in the early days of our National Park system. Such lodges are discouraged these days and it’s the only such place remaining in this particular Park. It sits near the top of the mountain in the spruce-fir forests of the Canadian Zone and I have wanted to spend at least one night there since first seeing it as a sixteen-year-old. Over the years I have tried to reserve a room there, but always unsuccessfully due to conflicts with my jobs over the years. But now, retired, such conflicts are not an issue. I was able to book a room, at last. It’s nice mark something off of the old bucket list, modest as it may seem to others.