Mt. Leconte Hike (Great Smoky Mountains)-Ascending Via Alum Cave and Descending Via Trillium Gap

well good morning everybody it is saturday june the 18th and as we usually do around my birthday we take a hike in the mountains so today uh we're going to be hiking up to arch rock now arch rock is a place in the creek not stopping we're not stopping arts rock all right let me start over good morning everybody we are going to be taking a hike today june 18th and we are going to be hiking to alum cave bluffs now what alum caves block cave bluffs it what i say wrong now we're not stopping there either what the only thing left on the sign is mount lakot folks i guess we are hiking up mount leconte today and actually that is what we're going to do uh we have not hiked mount lakan in 17 years we did it for my 30th birthday and uh on in 1999 and we did it again in 2005 so this is our first time in 17 years hiking up mount lakan we are going up from the alum cave trail and we have our vehicle parked at the trillium gap trailhead and we're going to be descending that trail and when we do that we will have all five trails to lacan under our belt so we're looking forward to that so we're going to be showing you some pretty scenery today and it is a beautiful morning for a hike in the great smoky mountains there's a breeze i'm going to say the temperature here the trail heads probably maybe 58 60 degrees the projected high on mount lake haunt today is 57 degrees so we're going to be gaining we're at about 3 700 feet of elevation now we're going to top out at 6593 so we're going to gain about 2800 feet of elevation over the next five miles so this is not going to be easy but i like the challenge so you ready to do this let's get shauna say with her braids and her masters had our son went to the masters this year you wouldn't believe how comfortable this hat is i mean it's the material is so nice and it matches my shirt that's why i wore it it matches your shirt the blue oh yeah okay all right are you ready i'm ready let's do it all right just pause here for a breather and we've been walking alongside the river so far the whole entire hike some beautiful spots to see the water coming over the rocks so we actually got on the trail officially at 708 this morning so we're going to be logging our time see how long it takes us to get a tub i'm estimating about three and a half hours so we'll see but how you doing so far so far less than a mile in so far so good [Laughter] well how you doing so far she's hit me she's hitting the bottle already hydrating just a bit so how you doing good tell them about your ankles right here they're burning we're what maybe a mile in don't don't look at the fitbit i don't even know what it says the fitbit's never ride it gets my hopes up for nothing so probably about a mile in wouldn't you say probably so at least tell us how long we've been doing it for 7 30 so we've been on trail 31 now all right here we came up on our truck 1.4 miles in and it looks like i see a bear it's like a very grumpy bear [Applause] yeah we're slowly making our way okay seance is going across the little foot bridge and getting ready to go into arch rock i'll show you that as we walk through i'm not gonna try to record when i'm crossing all right just across the foot bridge got all kinds of little flowers right here i'm going to say those are all mountain long yeah so i'm not a botanist but i know a few things all right you gonna are you taking a picture all right so we are 1.4 miles in i don't know what all she was saying um you couldn't tell it by the signs it looked like somebody took a bite out of it in that section but anyhow so you want to be careful walking up through here you got some rock steps to climb and some cable there's a cable here on the left to help you take a load you get behind these slow people you can't get anywhere you ain't going to hit your head on that don't worry about it it's low but it ain't that low no i'm saying you'd have to be about eight feet tall to hit that [Applause] and there's from the top of bart's rock looking back down [Applause] so we have 3.6 miles to go to the summit of mount leconte [Applause] we're leaving the river now probably not going to see much more of it as we ascend okay we have our first open view of mountains and honestly i'll tell you i'm glad it's an overcast day because i don't want the sun beating down on me but as long as the top of leconte and cleveland's dome we're not in the clouds i'm happy the comp was in the clouds on the way up here but it is supposed to clear off today can you zoom i will as much as i can this camera is not a good zoom did you see the flowers there i don't think i can i bet you that's some rhododendron still blooming up there i brought this camera because it is the best quality video we've ever had the only fault with it it's a sony zv one i believe uh the only thought with it is the zoom is not that powerful it's supposed to be a great vlogging camera it really is i mean for and as far as doing vlogs up close so if you want a good camera that it takes 4k video we don't always upload in 4k because it takes so long but um we bought this last october and we took it to max patch the first time we ever used the colors exploded i mean it was just like what you were looking at and i've seen very few cameras that can actually do that but it does good yeah so that's i think it's a sony zv1 and i would buy another one just like it honestly if i if something happened to this one because it's that good of video quality i'm going to continue to moving on we should be coming up shortly on a nice open area with some mountain views i know there was some azaleas and blueberry bushes last year when we came and maybe even a few rhododendron okay we're coming up on our first floral display here and please correct me if i am wrong i believe this is mountain laurel that we're looking at they got room so we're hoping to see a lot more of this i really want to see some of the pink rhododendrons and i think we're going to have to wait till we get up high for that because they've already bloomed in the lower elevations and believe it or not on june 18th spring is just arriving at the top so i'm assuming if there are any rhododendrons up there that there would be blooming about now so how you doing good ready to go okay and just about 50 feet past that is a really really pretty mountain laurel littering the path with flowers and we're starting to get some open views of the great smokies and while she's stopping to take a picture i'm going to stop and take a video i don't know if the camera's going to pick this up because again the zoom isn't the best but that whole mountain is just ablaze with those white flowers i guess the mountain laurels over there don't know if that's going to pick up or not real pretty though he really is traveling a lot today i didn't bring my big dslr camera with the zoom lens so just carrying this one that i can put in my pocket all right folks we're getting ready to come into an open area up here i remember this from uh you can check out our hike from last year by the way to allen k bluffs and we went through the same spot but getting some pretty flowers now over the path we got a little bit of a rhododendron right here it actually kind little bit of a light sweet smell through here yeah i guess with the flowers a bumblebee doing his thing but those the flowers are being shed in the path right here and i remember this area because like a little heath bald area right here that's a pretty picture there the beauty of god's creation i'll see how people look at stuff like this and denies there's a god look at the flowers in the path right here like i said we are coming up on an open area here just a moment we're going to stop and take a breather because i remember a big rock we can sit on for a few minutes if it's unoccupied there's also some blueberry bushes through here too wait a minute those are those azaleas maybe that's what i was trying to do yeah i think we're getting into where there's also some flame azalea i think that's right behind us oh wow i don't remember being this pretty last year with the flowers and we actually came the same weekend my birthday weekend oh yeah this is a beautiful trail today perfect day the temperature is cool i mean don't get me wrong we've worked up a sweat right now but if we were to sit down for a few minutes uh that wind would be a little bit chilly yes i am oh how pretty it's like it's just moving across there you dropped your poles in the path okay we're going to continue on just let you see what the trail looks like a lot of rocks you want to be sure of your footing um i would recommend you do not attempt this hike if you don't have good sturdy boots good hiking boots um i think if you wear tennis shoes up here you're asking for a sore time and absolutely not flip-flops or sandals now look at the view here folks hold my poles here this is just walking up a few feet what kind of birds are those chirping here we got a resident bird expert here i don't know triple wheel we'll just make something up and sound like you know what you're talking about sound convincing act like you've been here before right i got the blueberry bushes pretty sure that's what these are right here in front of me and tell you what taped me off as the blueberries on if you can see them little green blueberries just starting to come in up here i know that's a rhododendron so 8 22 we start at 708 so we've been going an hour and 14 minutes this is our first really really good views is this little section here and we have a tire lady right here say something i'm not that tired okay i mean yeah i kind of feel i would need a break take a breather i believe those are azaleas right there i think i misidentified those earlier uh i think that's that's i think that's an issue well i think that's the same thing that's back there yeah the leaves are smaller our azaleas at home have real small leaves though and of course these trees that you see right here um that's how we know we're at least 4 500 feet in elevations because that's when the canadian fur trees and spruce firs and stuff starts in smokies at 4 500 feet and you find these trees in canada so the climate in the smokies upper elevations is like that of southern canada nice little area here to take a breather on a rock if you should happen to need one why not people are really grumpy when you get them up early in the morning now we've got an interesting bear rock face area right over there i don't really know what caused that one i know there's been several mudslides in the smokies but i also know that the 2016 fires devastated a lot of areas so i don't know what caused that but let's just bare rock over there see the flowers going up and down yeah that's why i said that in the video i said what to hit me off that was a blueberry bush with a blueberry i did okay let me get a close-up though little blueberries and those provide food for the bears and i'd rather be eating this i had ravaged in the trash cans at the motel like he was last night here's a rhododendron and i'm hoping to see a lot more of those rhododendrons but i remember there being flowers in this area last year and we came the same time it just seems like it's better this year yeah we'll have to do that but just seems like it's a little bit more vibrant this year and right here is why you don't venture off the path i'm still back a good way from the edge but that is a sheer drop off folks you would not survive that so i just it's just this little side area off the path right here i got to see two well you don't oh i'm going to stay back from the edge like i did that makes my stomach hurt yeah i'm glad your stomach's hurt not that i want your stomach to hurt but i don't know i want you to be afraid of that okay welcome next stop should be alum cave bluffs and i'm gonna guess maybe probably less than a mile so got some pretty pink blossoms right there look at all these on the on the trail uh ground here just beautiful okay we're coming up behind that rock rocky faced area that we were looking at just a few minutes ago clouds are still continuing to move out but there's still some low ones so it looks like got a moon in view i got three quarters i guess how do you think so far [Music] folks along this trail i will say there are several places that if you there's like little side paths and uh you could drop to your death off any of them uh steve drop-offs but as long as you stay on trail you're gonna be fine now there are some places if i remember right again it's been well we did hike as far as the bluffs last year but it was 1999 we descended off of le conte on this trail and i about all i remember is that there were some very narrow places where you have to hold onto the cable and on the other side of you it's a steep drop off so when we come up on those i'll show them to you a little bit muddy they had some rain yesterday just gotta watch for mud and slick rocks okay folks we got some good news and some bad news when you reach this point in the trail you're going to see a very steep flight of steps now last year when we got this point i blurted out a very frustrating you've got to be kidding me but the good news is once you climb that set of stairs and around the curve you are at allen k bluffs i thought we still had a little ways to go but from last year's experience i know we're there so these are tough steps to climb but right past that's the bluffs and then i'll show you the bluffs when we get there now folks don't mind telling you those steps will get you winded wind but as i said we are now at the alum cave bluffs so good place if you see a storm coming up it's a good place to get out of it at least the rain part i won't make any promises on the lightning but it's the rain part you can stay dry under there so stop right here show you what the bluffs look like as you can see there's a nice little sitting area is it raining got a hiker coming up behind me i'm zoomed out as far as i can go nope not quite i'm getting busy just doing that all right we're going to take a breather here and i'm going to get me a drink got me a pro pal so somebody's been working up a sleeve that's what having a backpack on dude it's yeah let me get through there right quick again got a nice little overhang if it was to rain on you [Applause] we're going to take a break here and i'm going to eat a little snack and get a drink first drink i've had since before we left so we are 2.7 miles in which means we have 2.3 to go we're over halfway now the downside of that is from the trail head to here it's just rated as moderate the rest of it's rated strenuous what you're just pointing at i know i'm talking uh but um we're at 4 900 feet elevation so we have 1600 more feet to climb but we drop problem is after this we drop off uh pretty significantly so we have to make that back up so don't remind me yeah what time is it we've been here probably five minutes um see what time it is we start at 708 8 45. so an hour and 37 minutes i think that's i think last year about hour 50 minutes so i'd have to go back and watch the other video but anyway here we are adam k bluffs so we're gonna make our way onto the top how's my trail mix very good is it good it's very chocolatey so what's it taste like right now get something here a little bit i've actually had a little bit she's had most of it though yeah she's trying to get the chocolate out leave me with peanut butters go ahead you're fine okay i had it backwards i thought we had come 2.7 and we only had 2.3 to go because we come 2.3 but like i said on camera you know how you get there you put one foot in front of the other two too and that's it i learned on the gregory ball height complaining don't get you there any quicker i was out of shape then i was miserable and one more shot of allen k bluffs this is a popular spot to stop and take a break some people only go this far turn around and go back but we're going on to the top another nice view [Music] okay the trail is definitely getting more rugged now you see the cables and the rocks now right over there actually had to cut into the rock too yeah here's what she's talking about we still haven't gotten to the point yet where there's a drop off on the other side but that is to come yet so it's getting tougher once you pass out on cave bluffs it becomes rated strenuous that first part's already moderate so and it's pretty tough i should say yeah but i'm just telling you what the rating is and this is the strenuous part here so just really praying it clears off i mean when you look at the weather all week long every single day and it's showing a bright sun no clouds and then yeah we checked it last night showing all day morning clear i just want to get up there and get a view when you work this hard i'm just looking forward to the cookies yeah they got no bait cookies up there by the way i don't know if i said anything about the lodge but uh leconte lodge is an overnight i think i did mention that because that's something i want to do at some point but it's overnight place you have to book a reservation about a year in advance sometimes you can get in if someone cancels but if you want to ensure a spot you book it a year in advance and if it rains oh well yeah they can't control the weather and you don't get a refund so anyway it is what it is but it's an experience mount lakan is a pretty massive mountain and it's got a vantage point where you can watch the sun rise and then another place where you watch the sun set once cliff tops one's myrtle point and okay folks this is what the trail looks like now cable and just a very narrow area to walk and we're coming up into some of the pink catawba rhododendrons now got some more rhododendron i was thinking we would hit some of that as we got up high so sure enough we are it's not really in thick clusters like i was i was going to see like a whole thicket of it but haven't come across that yet but hopefully we will they're it's very pretty flowers all right we're on a another narrow section of trail uh she's gonna get a picture so let me walk on ahead and get out of sight this is where you want to really be careful folks because you got drop-offs not like i remember it but we're not there yet either okay we still have not reached the top yet but here's a little foretaste of uh what our view is gonna look like it's gonna be a little better but we are looking at clingman's dome which is the highest point in the smokies and it does look like it may clear off soon still the top is in the clouds but we met earlier yeah they were going to drive up to klingman's dome later klingman's dome is a bit higher than macant about 50 feet but you can get to it with a lot less effort you can drive to the parking lot and you can walk half a mile up a paved path now that that is a hard half a mile but it's only half a mile as opposed to we're gonna do a round trip of 11.7 today five up and then 6.7 down trillium no i'm not no i'm not including that i think it's like a mile from clifftops to myrtle point or something like that 11.7 just the two trails yeah if we do that i just would like to explore the top of the mountain yes i agree but as you can see very rugged trail and that's our first really good indication that it may clear off uh just looking at klingman's dome so are we what time is it let's see how long it's taking us so far we did have to stop at alum cave and got some snacks we were there what uh 20-25 minutes at allen know we left so maybe we were there half an hour and what is it now um okay so we've been at it for three hours and 31 minutes still not there so hopefully within four hours hopefully we can make it in four hours so it's taking us a little longer than i expected i've stopped to record a lot but yeah all right we're gonna finish it up and folks we're finally reaching the section i was remembering where the trail is that narrow with the cables and if you don't want your footing you take a tunnel so what i'm going to do is i'm not going to record when i'm walking across that but i'm going to record him shawn as he walks across it okay shaun c is walking across please be careful hold on to the cable i'm not sure if that's the only section like this or not but i'm not going to record when i'm walking it because i don't want to end up down there here again another treacherous section of trail with the cables and very narrow walkway and nice drop off right here and folks the view is fogging back up or clouding back up i'm really really hoping we literally planned this hike around today because it was showing clear all day it's moved all day though it just like moved around the circle but we're gonna get up there i'm just yeah i'm just really hoping cause that's what we did with mount camera it never cleared off until we left about 30 minutes after we left and uh it was supposed to be a clear day today what yeah very nice all right and just a little bit of what the trail's looking like okay i assume we're getting close to the lodge now because the trail has uh vastly leveled off and widened down a little bit and it's easy walking now so i'm assuming we should be coming up on the lakot lodge any minute we got a deer hi here we have intersected the rainbow falls trail we are 0.1 from the lodge bullhead trail is .4 it separates off from rainbow falls i think cherokee orchard is 6.5 that's the last time we came up here we hiked up rainbow falls and went down bullhead boyhead was a long walk down so let me go over to this side and allen k bluffs 2.7 our truck 3.6 we found gap road 4.9 so that's where we started from newfound gap road all right i'm starting to see the first buildings of leconte lodge and shaunicy is finally arriving and glad you can make it i've been here about 45 minutes but you have not well 4.5 seconds that's close enough yeah um so what time is it 11 19. 11 19 folks that was four hours and 11 minutes up here so from the bluffs it was 908 so basically two hours and what was it again 908 from the block no what is it now 11 19 11 19 so yeah um that's two hours 11 minutes so anyway we have a ride now question now do we go down that way or do we keep going straight i mean that's obviously the lodge so oh i know what happens if you go straight you walk down those steps where there's a sign on the main building so let's yeah we want to get that so let's go this way all right yeah this is what i remember here [Applause] we are at laconte lodge they have guest check in they have a gift shop dining hall now uh day hikers that are not overnighting i don't think you can eat in the dining hall but you can get a paper bag lunch i think it's 13 and i'll have to see what i was in that i know there's like a meat stick a cream cheese bagel and some other stuff but i got water and uh public stream all right so we're going to walk down the steps to the lodge and all right so turn the camera back on yeah she wanted a picture all right walking down steps now i have three batteries that are fully charged and i actually made it up on one battery so i'm going to switch them out up here here's one of the cabins you can rent and you do this for the experience it's not luxury but um you do this for the experience of saying you did it and i want to say it's like a hundred and twenty five hundred thirty dollars per person so for her and how to do it it would be like 250 they also have group cabins if you want to bring a group and go in together you probably would save money doing that i'm guessing it would be fun yeah the reason people do it is for the sunrises and sunsets it doesn't look occupied to me i'm gonna try to see if i can get a video through the window if somebody hollers at me then it was occupied and the days are made okay i say they're pretty primitive but it's a place to sleep looks like that one was sleep three i guess all right gift shop you have to be aware of the hours if you want your souvenir shirt and they open i guess for an hour in the morning then they open back up for five hours at noon and more cabins folks our body heat's starting to come down it is chilly up here i'm interested in seeing a temperature gauge up here if it's 50 degrees i'm surprised now it's june 18th the low last night was supposed to be 39 up here and it's supposed to be a high of 50 all right the battery went out right in the middle but what i was going to say was it was supposed to be 39 degrees up here last night and a high of 57 and it is nowhere near 57 degrees and the wind's blowing and wearing shorts and a t-shirt we saw people coming down with hoodies i kind of understand why they bought them now we weren't feeling the hoodie thing coming up but i understand it now now this would be a group cabin because it's got quite nice of a porch here so we're gonna find a place to take a break to the gift shop opens this this would be another group cabin now folks there is the dining room laconte lodge elevation 6 593 feet and they actually have the date up there they don't look like that's been changed in 40 years does it they must do that every day yeah they must change that out every day obviously dining hall is closed to all day sack lunches and can be purchased at the gift shop which is not open until noon is that your shower right there on the outside hot water i guess so folks you're gonna take a shower you i can't imagine i mean who would you go right here in front of everybody i know that's not a shower this is hot yeah maybe if you're washing a dish or something but yeah they don't have showers up here actually i think they give you a wash basin they probably prefer you do that in your cabin instead of standing out behind one yeah right there that first paragraph this is actually the third highest peak in the national park uh klingman's dome and mount guio are both higher but this is the tallest if that makes sense from the base to the top yeah it's over a mile tall the base of it starts down in gatlinburg now i'll tell y'all some really really what i find interesting stuff about this mountain this is people here 1928 94 years ago now here's the picture of the mountain i'm going to give y'all some interesting facts here are the various points on mount lakot it's a very long mountain across the top yeah right there it rises more than 5300 feet above its base in gatlinburg and it was named in honor of john laconte that's french name now hold on that's interesting he monitored a barometer in waynesville north carolina while buckley and klingman recorded barometer readings on the mountain summits elevation was calculated by comparing the two sets of readings that was a pretty primitive way of doing it but they usually got within a really really close range of what the elevations actually are but okay now 2012 marked the first for this lodge do you know what that is [Applause] just a strap here what happened here in 2012 that had never happened before it had a high temperature it had a high temperature prior to that it had never hit 80 degrees on top of this mountain ever even on the hottest days of summer and when we had that heat wave 2012 i think it did for three straight days it may have gotten to 81 or 82 degrees i don't think it has since it sure ain't going to today folks just standing here cooling off on my shirt um the average snowfall up here compared to gatlinburg uh gatlinburg gets about 10 inches of snow a year up here it gets anywhere from 85 to 100. a guy was just showing us pictures of when he was up here if you look at our own mountain video from april when we went up in the snow there was about what three inches on road mountain a guy just showed us his pictures he hiked up here that day it was 10 inches of snow up here that was on april 9th and i was going to say something else about this mountain too i think i told about the height of it from the base to the top it's the tallest in eastern america uh this lodge is very primitive but people pay a lot of money just to stay here so we're gonna try to do this sometime while we can still make the climb i am not coming back up allen cave was my last time coming up yeah we just we descended it in 1999 and i cried she cried her name she had knee problems and her knees were better now than they were no i hadn't probably we didn't know how to hike then we just thought well we're going to hike him out look hot we're young let's do it we were dumb and it was just like yeah yeah coming down we're better prepared now but we're also actually in better shape now but i turn 53 tomorrow so 23 it'll be 23 years ago tomorrow our first time up here and um then we did it again in 2005. please don't cry today well i've actually been doing um lifts and stuff like that working the muscles around my knees and my hamstrings and stuff like that that are supposed to strengthen your knees and i also have knee braces and trekking and i've been taking the poles make a difference i used to never hike with i never had to poles to my camera last fall and they do make a difference they do so i would say to you if you're going to do this hike prepare yeah we didn't prepare the first time but get you a good set of poles and you know what a lot of people want these expensive i'm not paying 175 dollars for poles these here that i use come from walmart they're like twenty dollars yes get two or three hikes at them throw them away and replace them well i've had these since 2016 and i've used it i mean that's got a chip on it but it ain't nothing i don't know where'd you get yours okay so believe me all they are is just sturdy i'm not getting there's some brand of holes that cost like over 100 they can keep those uh the poles do help but get you some goods boots and i would put you some good insoles in them and uh that's made a difference coming up i'm not i'm really not sore i actually feel good i'm not sure we will be but [Laughter] folks we're gonna hang out a while because i'm optimistic the sun keeps trying to come out and the clouds just keep persisting and just heard a guy up here on the porch talking about i guess the lodge caretaker told him that last winter in one snow they had one snow it's four feet deep so i cannot imagine hiking up here then because that guy was showing us his pictures in 10 inches of snow on april the 9th but it gets brutally cold up here i want to say you y'all can check me on this but i want to say the lowest recorded temperature in the national park was here at the lodge and it was minus 32 or minus 34 or something like that and that's not wind chill that's actual temperature even now the temperature is easily in the 50s with you can see the way those clouds are moving how the wind's blowing all right getting out of the gift shop [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah i gotta tell that so when we get back outside i'll tell you all story about him when we get out of here actually i'm not going to have to tell her the next picture overtakes it he wanted his mom who was uh not able to walk to see the top of this mountain he strapped her on his back in a chair and carried her up the mountain that was the story [Applause] you can see the massive snow falls against some years it's less the sun it's way up there 155 inches in 1970s [Applause] it's so dark in here i can't really read it but i think that's giving the dates of the earliest snow and the latest snow of the year [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] got all my money [Applause] 2019 was a down year for snow that's probably the least then it looks like this past winter was 96 inches so that's back up there about where it ought to be okay let's see the no bake we were told to get these when we come up here we make them at home but these are supposed to be really good so if they're anymore what you make hold your t-shirt up real quick that's a t-shirt we earned these didn't we yes we did oh man the ladies sizes i'll go ahead and pass on what i've learned is they run very small she said about two sizes too small but i didn't get a lady size i just got a men's i just went ahead and got her okay she said those run pretty true i did i did go with the 2x that's one second so they will strengthen them they feel like a good material something they're very peanut buttery they're very good okay i just went inside and asked about the temperature it is 56 degrees so it's a degree shy of what the forecast high was that's the wind they said the last two days you know when it was like 97 at home they said it got really warm up here it hit 73 yesterday they said that was hot up here so it's not going to even hit 60 today i don't think unless the sun burns this off what'd they say about as far as the forecast uh she said that up here it can be different in five minutes but it was supposed to be clear today it obviously isn't but it's in five minutes it can blow up blow over so i'm gonna wait a little bit okay here the little restrooms very primitive not flush toilets i just went there changing my shirt i want to make sure my new shirt fit before i walked off the mountain with it and we're just waiting and waiting and praying and hoping this cloud blows off of here so we can actually see something it's it was a hard trip up here today so we're just waiting and praying and freezing now i'm gonna finish my story from inside about jack huff he was the founder of this lodge and he loved this mountain there's actually a motel in gatlinburg named after him called the jack huff motor lodge but as the picture in there showed he wanted his mom to experience the view from up here which i hope he didn't come on a date like today but obviously he didn't because yeah he strapped her on his back and carried her up now i admire it but the man for doing that but i can hardly carry myself up here so i do believe i'm seeing some valley views wait a little bit longer we're freezing to death to be honest with you we're going to go ahead and go up cliff tops yeah but the other story is about a woman named gracie you need to look up on ebay um gracie and the mountain uh it's a book about her climbs up here her first climb was it when she was in her 60s and i think her last one she was 90 i want to say 94 years old maybe she climbed this mountain i think 246 times and we've done three so her record i think her record has been beaten but it ain't gonna be beat by us i'll tell you that yeah chubbs here had a hard enough time who's chose me i'm talking about chubbs and i was like i thought you pointed me when you said all right well we actually both are but it's just like i wouldn't call you that though i was about to come back and say something retaliation but [Laughter] anyway i'll speak for myself if you want to read her story she moved here from alaska to east tennessee lived i think i want to say over in maryville uh but i hiked this mountain i'm going to say 246 times i may be off but give or take a few but it was well over 200 times i have her book at home hadn't read it in a while but um gotta give her props that's for sure yes you do you sure do and i'll be honest with you i do not see how a woman in her 90's made the climb we made today well you know there was actually some older couples there was an older there were but that had apparently done all the trails they were telling us and they had stayed the night up here at the lodge coming down i bet you they were in their late 60s early 70s okay folks we're gonna walk on up to cliff tops that's point two miles from the lodge you just walk up the steps from the dining hall and here's the trail for that again we're just seeing a few breaks of sun but honestly they don't last what a minute at a time yeah then the cloud just covers it back up so i figure if we get where it opens up for five minutes we're gonna enjoy that five minutes so hoping to see a little bit of a view so okay now that little point to walk up to cliffs tops is pretty strenuous 0.2 miles yeah we're not even it's very rocky and we're almost there but right here's a trail we have arrived at cliff tops we're going to wait for a while and hopefully clingmans dome will come into view here it's still obscured in the clouds one thing you'll notice about the trees up here it gets so cold and windy the trees are all pointed one direction here's an example right in front of me so here's the current situation um looking down at highway 441 no doubt i can see i see cars down there in the valley looking down towards georgia you have some views opening up once you look back over to cleveland's dome this is what you get and actually if that would ever clear that way you can see the city or the town of gatlinburg now our friends the virginia fun seekers they're out west now and um david stood on the corner of winslow arizona and sung so shaughnessy is gonna we're gonna go one better than that shout out he's gonna sing on top of old smokey right here with a crowd on top of old smokey all covered in snow what's the threat i didn't remember the rest of the lyrics i lost my true love i pushed him or no whatever hold on now we don't make up our own lyrics i don't know that ain't how it goes okay well don't sing it you see how it is folks violent tendency that's what happens when you get up at 4 45 in the morning i don't think i'm gonna have to look up the lyrics but i don't think that's the way it is yeah those clouds they just basically swirling and staying there it's a little warm around this rock i'm gonna say it's probably 60. the clouds are just blowing around but they won't leave these clouds are doing some interesting things i mean they're like just swirling around instead of just blowing away there's they're like i don't know i don't know how to describe what they're doing sometimes they're not doing it now they're going like a circular motion so and you see how dark we came to see clinton's dome it's literally seven miles away if it would ever clear you'd have a great shot of it all right a little clearing down the valley you can see the edge of gatlinburg try to zoom up a little bit can't see the space needle but i can see it may be the park vista motel i think circular building there about middle of the screen should be the park vista and this is how quick it changes folks this is probably the best view we've had yet it's still cloudy but right now cleveland's dome is about the only thing that we can't see a little guy here he's whistling at me okay bird expert what is that he's black he's got some orange on him it wouldn't be an oreo would it like a baltimore oriole gatlinburg is almost completely cleared out now you couldn't see that five minutes ago [Music] get down here okay i'm gonna keep waiting a little bit more because it looks like we got one straggler cloud moving our way and it's looking pretty good behind me the only thing now that hasn't cleared off is clean so again looking back down towards gatlinburg pigeon forge i can actually hear signs yeah they're telling you where are we in the distance we're looking right at the chimneys i don't know how i didn't spot that right in front of us you see them yeah right in front of us i didn't even spot that yeah right the black tops right down there yes i was looking for them and it's like they're right under my nose and we're well above them they're they're forty seven hundred and fifty five feet they're they're getting some green back up towards the top it is it's recovering that's that is where the fires of 2016 started out there in the distance you're looking at standing indian mountain that's almost in georgia but it's just barely north carolina and brass town ball georgia is obscured by cleveland's dome so we're not gonna get it today folks long awaited for a moment is here clingmans dome which is the highest point in the smokies is clearing off just before this cloud gets it so i'm going to go ahead and try to zoom up on that before that gray cloud gets there don't know if you can make out the observation tower on the top but it is 50 feet higher than mount lake would and we're on of course look hot right now that is cleveland's the home highest point in the great smoky mountains national park at 6 643 feet and it's fixing to get the clouds again so while we've got an open view now here cliff tops isn't so far you want to go and right there's why that's it looking up now towards the kentucky border pretty indescribable what do you think about clifftops oh it's pretty once it's cleared off it's real pretty are you hugging yourself for i got a pain in my thigh pretty isn't it we wait all right we're gonna get ready to head down one more sweeping panorama and it has finally cleared for good oh look at that i got like four bars of service up here wow no way probably is okay we want to show you the shirts once again that we just purchased at the lodge you you can you can't order these online you gotta hike to get them because it says i hacked it the reason i'm showing you these not that they're anything great they're 26 dollars a piece but um what i had heard before i came up here was that they run very small so that you whatever size you normally wear get at least one size bigger especially the wim as they say the women's are cut like two sizes and they're fitted and i didn't get a woman's i just got so she got a man's large yeah i just got him um i usually wear extra large i got a 2x right now it fits really it's a little loose but they said it will shrink as well so i want to make you aware that if you get your shirt they will shrink um i'm going to get sunburned on top of this whole head of mine if i don't put a hat back on uh they will shrink so i think when this shrinks a little bit it's going to be perfect so at least guys get one size bigger than what you would normally wear so just throw that little bit of information in there we're going back to gatlinburg and we're going to go get something to eat tonight something nice so we're going to hike down trillium gap and um wait a long time for this to clear off but we're going to hike down trillium gap and uh we will be showing you a pretty waterfall and anything else that we see along the way like a bear or if there's any trillium flowers blooming but we're going to uh show you grotto falls you actually walk behind the waterfall and you're supposed to stay dry so we're going to find out if that's true i just had to veer off the trail a little bit the way the sun was hitting this rhododendron hi the way the sun's hitting that is absolutely beautiful now folks since we've come down from cliff tops it has cleared out and we can actually see douglas lake behind the lodge i don't know if that's going to come in but that's a good little ways from i here found a spot where i can get a cell signal let me just find a spot where you can see it the temperature because the sun has come out amount like hot has warmed to 64 degrees it's not bad for june 18th uh it's probably i'm gonna say 10 to 15 degrees warmer now than it was when we got here because the wind was blowing and it was cloudy and we were freezing it's very pleasant right now so it is 64 degrees up here so the clouds have moved out okay folks we decided to hike out to myrtle point which is the other vantage point on mount lakot there's cliff tops in myrtle point so got a nice wide open view right here no we're not quite there yet but this is as wide open as you can get and i see cleveland's going back behind us behind that tree there's that rhode island yeah yeah it curves and then you see people parking i know what that is that's the kind of left you overlook okay folks we are now on the very highest point of mount lakot uh at a true elevation of 65-93 and right there you can see where they're stacking rocks up there's a word that starts to seek cairn or cayenne or something they call that where you stack make a rock pile but all right folks we let the lodge attendant talk us into coming out to myrtle point said the view was way better this is actually looking at the same view we saw from cliff tops because there's clingman's dome again where this view does have the advantages it's much more expansive and you can see a lot more as i'll demonstrate here in just a minute now this is the area you can't see from clifftops on towards the northeast section of the park over here to the left northeast section of the park that is one thing you can't see from a clifftops that you can see from myrtle point there is the second highest peak in the great smoky mountains mount guyo 6 621 feet there's no view from the top of it i've never been up there that's what i've heard and big cataloochee right there that's in north carolina [Applause] and it's probably too hazy and this camera doesn't have a good enough zoom but if you look right dead center your screen there is a mountain range just picking up in the far distance behind that little gap and that is the black mountain range of north carolina where mount mitchell is i figured i could see it from up here and i finally did spot it very hard to see it's over 70 miles away looking back out this side of myrtle point you can see pigeon forge over a mile below us in the valley [Applause] looking out over the tennessee valley and up towards the state of kentucky and virginia yes you can see that that far from up here douglas lake all right folks we have seen myrtle point i'm sorry not to let you see more of the trail but uh i had came up here with three fully charged batteries and i'm on my last one and we haven't even left the top of mount leconte yet so i want to save some battery for the waterfall but here we are at trillium gap trail that's the way we're descending that's where our vehicle is and it doesn't really tell how far it is the grotto falls um trillion gas 3.6 and then porter's creek trail i don't know what that is cherokee orchard 8.8 we're not going that far we should have 6.7 miles on this trail so we are going to head down trillium gap now so it took us 4 hours and 11 minutes coming up we are not looking for it to take that long going down so shaunicy is about to tell us what time it is 3 12. 3 12. i'm going to say we're going to be down before six o'clock i hope i'm right because we got seven o'clock reservations at the park grill yeah and i'd like to shower all right we're going to have to get going okay folks we have finally gotten to the junction of trillium gap trail and uh where we have to take a left it says 3.6 to mountain i think shauna said this is her favorite trail ever i ain't never doing this trail again i gotta be honest with you about something i don't know how they figure these miles we've been walking downhill for two hours and have just now come 3.6 miles i don't think that's even possible we've been steady we've been steady we haven't stopped i mean we haven't had to stop and rest coming downhill uh i don't know how they figure these miles but um anyway we are at the intersection we basically have about three miles to go to get back to the car and about one and a half to get to the grotto falls so we honestly were at the point we thought we had missed the junction because we just kept walking and walking we're a little relieved to see this because we now know we were right but uh it seemed like a lot further than that and i'm not basing on being tired and based on how long we've walked downhill and uh we've been timing it and i think they need to re-figure that mileage i think i think it's further than that yeah but uh anyway let's make sure we go the right way wouldn't that be something oh yeah my feet are hurt yeah so hopefully the next thing we see will be grotto falls okay folks we are finally making it to grotto falls and should be able to see that coming into view and the trail actually goes behind the waterfall so we're hoping to stay dry here [Laughter] i won't lie to you that pool it's very inviting right now sorry for the bumpiness and video we're going down there they'll stay mostly dry start splashed a little here's the bit side [Music] you see that mountain over there one of these days i'm gonna climb that mountain see that mountain over there i ain't never climbing that mountain again okay folks we wanted to give you a little run down of our hike up mount lakan which you can see uh dominating the background we did hike it yesterday in fact we logged a total officially of 13 and a half miles uh we hiked up allen cave trail which is five miles we descended a trillium gap trail and it's like my wife pointed out yesterday we've been reading that wrong we thought it was trillium like the flower it should be trillion as in the number as far as how far it was down it seemed like a lot longer than the 6.7 miles it's supposed to be but um so then we took a couple of side hikes 1.4 miles out to myrtle point a round trip and then uh 0.4 miles up to cliff tops it back those are the two overlooks on mount le con is myrtle point cliff tops so we're going to tell you all a little about our hike and what we would recommend and not recommend um you go first since you seem to have the most to say about it well let's just say looking at that mountain it's it's an awesome view once you get up there it's beautiful we had to wait for it to clear off so the views are outstanding up there so i'm glad i did it to say that i've done it and i've done all five trails we had done it before yeah we've done all that all five trails and so i mean i'm proud of that got my t-shirt don't have it on now but if you watch the video got my t-shirt you know i hiked it so i'll start off by saying you know we went up allen cave um we did last year for his birthday just the allen cave up and back nice trail you know hard but not too bad um this time you know we took the allen cave up yeah we had to take a few stops some breathers it it was some it was some work um once we got up there it was very foggy very chilly it was chilly uh upper 40s to low 50s yeah so we got our way for the store to open got our t-shirts got the famous snow baked cookies which they were good they were very peanut buttery but just like your typical boiled cook we always call it boiled cookies cookies they're actually called no bacon yeah these are a little more peanut buttery than they were chocolate yeah and i think the ones you make are a little more chocolate but they're both good so those are those are you know worth it yeah and they had a you or you could get chocolate chips you know two dollars each um so i mean to say that we've done it conquered it yeah i'm proud of that um when it started clearing off you know the 0.2 up to cliff tops which is a pretty little rocky seat trail up there to that but we set up there for a while until it cleared out and amazing view beautiful then we went over to myrtle point and the only reason we decided to do that even though we retired a girl that works up there says oh it's my favorite you need to do it someone else even you know said it's it's great since we were doing a view a video on it we wanted to feature both vantage points and while we were there yeah like okay yeah we'll do it so went over there um it just one guy said it was treacherous the last point two was a little bit more rocky and worse but um it was beautiful um i was tired retired and pretty hungry by then we had snacks but i was pretty hungry um so we started down trillium gap trail we met um a family of four that said that they had started at 10 30. we have just left and it was what three yeah 311 i think took them over five hours we're like she said we stopped a lot so yeah they hadn't gotten to the top just yet we met like okay we never saw another soul we didn't see another person we got the grotto falls for five miles that's no lie we didn't see another soul we didn't ask anybody nobody passed away concerned because we were thinking are we still on the right trail i mean you could tell we were seriously wondering if we had missed the junction somewhere and gotten off on the wrong trail and where we were going to end up and the reason being it was only supposed to be 3.6 miles to the junction for uh what is that brushy mountain trail mountain and folks if that was 3.6 miles then i'm 10 feet tall and you think going down the trail was terrible i'm just going to say it was like very rocky and it was up until that point it was like a gradual just going straight down you know because i kept trying to think okay it's gonna level out any um any uphill it was pretty much just gravel straight down yeah 99 of it is all downhill so if you're going to ascend that way my advice would be think think twice and three times about it because it is mostly all uphill with just a couple of little stretches you gotta watch for the llama um yeah that's the route the llamas take up there and they don't really have good manners yeah so careful so yeah if you want to watch for that but somebody had a few uh problems with their legs yesterday so anyway i've got arthritis in my knees my lower back and hips so i've been working out trying to build the muscles been reading on it what i need to do and so forth and i even suggested we not so i had blisters all over my feet and finally once we made it to the junction my feet couldn't take it no more i said i need to change socks and he had a couple extra pairs so i put his socks on i hiked prepared i had extra socks but it was actually the same kind of socks i had on them like i'm not wearing those but because i had so many issues with those socks and having to walk funny it made my knees start hurting so i had knee problems and last night i'll just for the past five miles she was having to walk very slow very but it was steady slow but just slow and i was just trying to just i mean there were turtles passing you and giving you dirty looks but i was really i told myself i'm not going to hurt when i come down and then last night i woke up three o'clock in the morning i said to myself i'm gonna i'm gonna have to go to the ortho doctor and have surgery on my knee it was hurting that bad so it's not as bad now my blisters is what's really hurting now so all in all i'm glad i did it it's a beautiful view up there at the top i ain't doing it again though okay so your turn if there's any future uh videos from up there i guess i'll be going by myself so um so yeah she uh did struggle at the end going down we actually had seven o'clock separate reservations at the park grill that we didn't make we ended up at the park grill after what about 8 15 8 20 yeah something like that we actually got off the trail 708 yeah but by the time you roaring for motor nature trails is very slow going so anyway like she said we took alum cave up that is a beautiful trail if you're going to ascend a trail i'm not going to tell you it's easy there is no easy way to mount the comp because you have to gain so much elevation but you actually gain less from alum cave than you do rainbow bullhead or trillium gap because you're starting at about 3 700 feet at allen cave so uh the the first part of it to the bluffs is maybe only moderate it's not bad there's a beautiful area where it's open and it's a bald area and there's plenty of flowers as you'll see in the video or as you saw that was absolutely beautiful i would do that hike to the bluffs again once you leave the bluffs and start going towards the con you descend for a while which is not a good thing because you have to make all that elevation back up and believe me you do after you descend you start ascending really steeply really narrow in a lot of places even dangerous in a lot of places but it's a beautiful trail that's the most scenic of the five trails that we've done is the alum cave trail so if you're looking for a scenic way up that's it a trillium gap i'm like or i would not descend that trail again to me i really think the mileage i don't know how they fear the mileage but that one just seems really really underestimated to me it was what 3.6 to the it took us two hours folks to walk downhill three point six miles and we didn't stop does that seem right that's before she started having her trouble uh does that seem right that it should take two hours to walk downhill 3.6 miles uh i don't think so but anyway uh it was to the point we were concerned we were on the wrong trail we both agreed we had not come to a junction and there was supposed to be a junction with the brushy mountain trail and we just kept walking and it seemed like we walked for eternity and finally we came to it and then it's kind of after that i think that you had to change your into my socks and then um it was a hard hike we're both feeling it this morning i'm 53 today i feel like right now i'm about 83. yeah but i'm feeling better than i was so it's yeah give it a day or two i'll be fine i'll be ready to do it again every time we do one of these hikes i'll say i ain't doing it again and then after a couple of days i start saying yeah let's look at this hike so we were discussing hikes while we were up there yet yeah we were but um mount laconte if you're an experienced hiker you want to do it there's a lodge at the top as you saw uh it's a great place it's beautiful just i wouldn't recommend the trillium gap trail that's just me uh our first time we went to newfound gap started there that's the least elevation game by the way but it's longer it's eight miles you go on the appalachian trail then you get on the boulevard trail that's one way uh alum caves another way rainbow falls is a nice trail up we've done that you have the waterfall uh two point i think seven miles in something like that bull head seemed long coming down when we did it but it was a much better trail than trillium gap i think is the worst of the trails as far as rockiness just rough on your body so i would avoid trillium gap that's my recommendation but um we get to go through grotto falls we did that's that's now let me say it's about trillium gap if you're just going as far as grotto falls from the parking lot that's 1.3 miles it's a great trail it's smooth yeah after grotto falls is when it goes downhill in a hurry if you're just going to grotto falls take it it's fine it's the only way to get to grotto falls actually that's a good trail yeah it is but after that it deteriorates so anyway that's our review thank you all so much for watching and please like and subscribe and we hope you enjoyed this video of mount lakant

Channel: NCMemoryMakers

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Id: MARwNjuOf_Q

Length: 78min 46sec (4726 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 22 2022