Tour de LeConte Fundraiser for the Trillium Gap Trail

The Magic and Mystique of Mt. LeConte

Spend any time in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and you’ll undoubtedly hear about one of its most iconic peaks:  Mt. LeConte.  Standing tall at 6,594 feet, it welcomes thousands of hikers a year to its summit on one of the five trails leading to it.

Many people hike Mt. LeContes’ most popular trail, Alum Cave, because they’ve been told it offers some of the Park’s best views and most interesting geological features.  While others are plugging away at their 900-miler map, eventually hiking every path to the summit (some people hike thousands of times to the summit!).  And still others are making the trek with the ultimate reward of a night’s stay at the coveted LeConte Lodge (or perhaps the less refined backcountry shelter at the summit). For whatever reason people make the journey, it amounts to millions of footsteps traversing these five trails each year.

If you’ve ever read the children’s book, The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein, you likely remember the story of a tree who lovingly gave her gifts to a boy throughout his entire life, often at her own expense and eventually to her demise.  It reminds me of the trails leading to LeConte.

These rugged dirt paths fill our souls with joy and an undeniable sense of accomplishment, and they don’t ask a thing in return, even as they deteriorate from the impact of our constant footsteps.  But I pose this question:  How much are we willing to give back in return, when these trails need us?

We can’t change the outcome in The Giving Tree.  But if we could, I’d personally want to put a more sustainable and optimistic spin at the end, with the tree recovering because the boy was thoughtful enough to reciprocate her love and care.  Lucky for us, we can jump in and alter the fate of the Park’s hiking trails, thanks to Friends of the Smokies.

Trails Forever Program

Through the Trails Forever program, Friends of the Smokies has facilitated significant work on some of the Park’s most popular hiking trails.  And if you think this work just amounts to picking up trash, cutting back overgrowth, and other easy tasks, think again.

These before and after photos from the Alum Cave Trail project a few years ago are compelling evidence to the amount of work and skill these restoration projects entail.  You can find more photos from this project and the work they did on the Forney Ridge Trail right here.

Lucky for all of us, the Trails Forever project is hard at work again, restoring another trail leading to LeConte.  This time, it’s the Trillium Gap Trail that they’re turning into a masterpiece.  But despite the Smokies astounding amount of biological diversity, no one has ever come across a Money Tree to fund projects of this scope and scale.

That’s where we come into the story.

Those of us who love the Smokies and Mt. LeConte have a chance to give back to a place which has given so much to us.  Whether it’s volunteering our time for trail work or making a donation to the program, it all counts.  And it’s imperative to the sustainability of the Park’s trail network (which, by the way, has lost roughly 100 miles of trails over the years, partially because of limitations in resources to maintain all of them).

So I hope these words have inspired you to make a donation to the Trails Forever program.  But if you’re not quite convinced it’s worthy of your hard-earned cash yet, read on!

Tour de LeConte Fundraiser

After I finished hiking all 803 miles of trails in the Park on September 2, I was even more appreciative of the work of Trails Forever, since many of the Park’s trails I hiked are in need of serious TLC.  Rather that just writing my own check to the program though, I wanted to find a way to channel my energy into a larger platform, to inspire others who love the Smokies as much as I do.  The bigger question became what I could do to create this platform.

Well, sometimes the Universe gives you exactly what you need at the right time, and for me, it was in the form of three guys who all just coincidentally happen to be named “Adam.”  The “Three Adams” completed the Tour de LeConte Challenge in May, and their amazing accomplishment planted the seed of an idea in my own head.

If you’re not familiar with it, the Tour de LeConte Challenge entails hiking all the trails that lead to Mt. LeConte’s summit, which amounts to about 45 miles of hiking with over 11,000 feet in elevation gain along the way.  But the kicker is that these miles must be completed within a 24-hour period!

Distances like this are typically reserved for three to four days of hiking, not one day!  Only about 22 people have ever been crazy motivated enough to attempt and successfully complete the challenge (at least on record), and it was a blast watching them succeed!

Inspired by the “Three Adams” and their amazing accomplishment, I reached out to Friends of the Smokies and pitched my idea:  Attempting the Tour de LeConte Challenge myself, in hopes of raising both awareness and $5,000 in donations towards the Trillium Gap Trail restoration project.  They loved the idea!

Thankfully, I have a good friend and hiking buddy, Chris Ford, a.k.a. Pacer, who is just as excited as me about hiking ridiculous amounts of mileage in the name of a good cause.  So in late October, Chris and I are attempting the Tour de LeConte Challenge together!  Chris is also a Smokies 900-Miler, but his trail legs have been primed for quite awhile since he completed a thru hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2015 and the Pacific Crest Trail this summer!

In hopes of inspiring you to donate to the Trails Forever program to restore the Trillium Gap Trail, and in gratitude of your support, I will do my best to keep you entertained with our training efforts on Mt. LeConte’s trails by:

• Sharing stories about the history of Mt. LeConte and some of its most famous personalities.
• Sharing some of  the unique highlights of the trails that lead to Leconte’s summit, including the flora, fauna, and geological features (I am a graduate of the naturalist program at Tremont and love sharing my knowledge with others!)
• Sharing some hiker safety and preparedness tips (outdoor education is a tremendous passion, inspired by my involvement on Haywood County’s Search and Rescue Team on the North Carolina side of the Park).

I’ll post this content through video and blog posts, and the best way to stay updated is:

• My Instagram account
• My website’s Facebook page
• My YouTube Channel (where I’ve already published one video)

I also hope to provide some real-time updates with photos and video as we complete the challenge in late October.  We’ll need all the virtual cheerleaders we can get to successfully complete the Challenge, and we hope you’ll accept this invitation to be on Team #FriendsJauntUpLeconte!

Honestly though, what matters most to us is your help raising $5,000 for the Trillium Gap Trail restoration project! 

How to Donate

If you’re already inspired and want to forego a fancy coffee drink or two and be one of the first donors, head to this page on the Friends of the Smokies website.  Your donation will be earmarked specifically for the Trillium Gap restoration project and is tax deductible.

And if you’d like a suggested donation amount, here are a few ideas (but no amount is too small and we appreciate them all!):

• $9 to represent $1 per mile of the Trillium Gap Trail (it’s actually 8.9 miles, but I’d say it’s worth the extra dime).
• $45 to represent each mile we’ll hike.
• $90 to represent each mile we collectively hike is simply the bee’s knees.

If just 556 people donated $9, we’d reach our goal.  I have no doubt we can find that number of people who have benefitted from the Smokies network of trails, especially the five that lead to LeConte’s magnificent summit.

I can assure you that your donations will fuel the fire beneath our feet, to finish the Tour de LeConte Challenge successfully!  But more importantly, our donations are the best form of trail magic we can give to these trails that give so much to us.  And they don’t cost a cent for us to use and enjoy in a National Park that doesn’t even charge an entrance fee!

Thank you so much in advance, and here’s to a safe and successful completion of the Tour de LeConte Challenge in late October (we will announce the date of our attempt as it gets closer and we know a bit more about the weather, but we are aiming for October 26).

Happy trails and stay safe out there on your own adventures, y’all!

Nancy (a.k.a. Seal Mom)

P.S.  A special thanks to the following companies for their generous support of our Tour de LeConte Challenge:

• Gossamer Gear for providing me with exceptional gear to use while I train, including my LT5 Hiking Poles and Kumo 36 Backpack.
• Lightheart Gear for the providing me with a fabulous (and classy!) hiking dress from their newest designs, to train in.
• Rawlogy for providing a set of cork balls and roller to roll out achy muscles after our hikes.
• Up ‘N Adam Adventures for the use of their gorgeous photograph of sunset at Cliff Tops, on Mt. LeConte’s summit (and for all the help they’ve given me with training advice about the Tour de LeConte)!