The trail had been blasted out of the mountainside during the Great Depression by the Civilian Conversation Corps. Hanging off ropes and by a prayer, those brave men had left an amazing and lasting legacy for their children and grandchildren to enjoy. The Great Smoky Mountains Park was just logged-over mountains back then. Sixty-eight years later, it was a lush international biosphere — A true monument to nature’s ability to heal whatever wounds man inflicted upon her.
But that didn’t make the trail any less steep. The man took a break, unscrewed his canteen and sat down on the downed tree. He looked toward Eye of the Needle. Nothing but inky blackness. His last trip he had spotted a mother Peregrine falcon sitting on her nest. But today is was too dark to see that far. He clicked on his headlamp and pulled out his journal. A quick sketch and a few notes and he was on his way. He looked at his watch — he had left at 1:45 a.m. to get to the top by sunrise.
He was on Alum Cave trail. Not the highest trail in the park, not the most difficult. But it featured some of the most spectacular geographic features in the whole park. And some of the most amazing views. At 6,593 ft, Mount LeConte is the third highest peak in the national park, behind Clingmans Dome (6,643 ft) and Mount Guyot (6,621 ft). The burning in his lungs told him that was 100% correct.
He tripped over a rock and stumbled forward. His curse was all that was heard for miles.
His grandfather had helped blast out this trail. And the love of his grandfather’s life, his grandmother, had been one of the first visitors to the LeConte Lodge. One of his most cherished possessions was the picture of them on a date nearby taken in 1927. Behind them hauntingly stood the Chimney Tops. The Chimney’s were still there. His grandparents were gone.
He continued to walk along in the darkness. And was very thankful for his hiking partner, the Moon.
Alum Cave Trail was named for Alum Cave, a natural feature halfway up the trail. He opened up his notebook and read what he had jotted down from Wikipedia about Alum Cave:
“Alum Cave goes back to 1837 when three farmers (Ephraim Mingus, Robert Collins, and George W. Hayes) from Oconaluftee, North Carolina applied at the Sevier County (Tennessee) Land Office for a grant of a 50-acre tract of land that would include Alum Cave and its salt deposits. Tennessee sold the tract of land to the three men on December 6, 1838. The Epsom Salts Manufacturing Company was formed to mine the deposit. The minerals mined were alum, Epsom salt, saltpeter, magnesia, and copperas. The easily accessible salts were depleted by the mid-1840s, but mining resumed during the Civil War. There is no report on any mining after the Civil War.[2]”
The hiker tried to imagine what it must have been like in the 1860’s carving out the side of this huge hill. The world had gotten considerably smaller in the following 150 years. But in 1864, this must have felt like the other end of the world. But it would have been preferable to Gettysburg, Shiloh or Vicksburg. He smiled: It was preferable to his normal life, too.
The hiker looked at his watch one more time. The faint rays of pink peeking over the horizon confirmed what his watch said: It was just about time for dawn. He hiked faster and his lungs burned more. He was almost to the peak.
He made it to Myrtle Point right as the show began. Nearby peaks and mist were illuminated by the sun’s magnificent first act. A deer scurried in the brush behind him. The Smokies came to life for another day.
His hike up Alum Cave Trail was a perfect metaphor for life. Steep. Difficult. Rocky at times. Spectacular views if you bothered to look. Take a hard turn one way and you plunged to your death. Turn the other and you hit solid rock. You just made the journey no matter how hard. One. Step. At. A. Time.
“But at the end,” he said out loud, “you’re rewarded by God’s glorious light.”
He jotted that down in his sketchbook and went to the Lodge for a cup of hot coffee.
