The lodge can put up 44 people. They charge $4 a day for room and two meals. In the three mid-summer months the place is full every night. But right now there aren’t so many. Unless somebody shows up late, I will be the lone guest tonight.
In the old days up here, all the beds were of balsam boughs. City fellers who walked up the mountain could go back home and tell of sleeping on a bed of brush and limbs.
But now this is a National Park, and you can’t even cut a twig from a tree. So visitors have to be content with nice modern mattresses and Hudson’s Bay blankets.
Some amazing people have walked into Le Conte Lodge. One 94-year-old man climbed the mountain on foot. An 83-year-old woman came up under her own steam. And another man past 80 walked up alone, got caught by darkness within 200 yards of the Lodge but didn’t know where he was, so lay down on the ground and slept all night. He walked on in after daylight, feeling fine.
BEARS DON’T HIDE
But let me tell you about my walk up the mountain. On the Alum Cave trail, by which I came, there is no place where you walk along an actual precipice that drops off straight down for thousands of feet. But I can say that if you are up here, and should suddenly find yourself in desperate need of a precipice, there are some places that would serve as excellent substitutes.
The first part of the trip, in the lower altitudes, is deep in a forest of trees and bushes. Rhododendron roots make a tangle that is absolutely tropical. You can’t see 10 feet into it, and this is where the bears used to hide when hunters got after them.
Of course, there is no hunting in the park now, so the bears don’t have to hide any more. The bears in the Smokies are black bears, a little smaller and a little faster on the bite than the Yellowstone bears.
The favorite bear story around here is about the woman tourist who got bit on her behind. She was just getting into her car after taking pictures of some cubs, when Mama Bear ran up and bit the lady right where she sits down. It made a gash three inches long and an inch and a half deep. The doctor who tended it said it was a good thing the lady was fat.
They say there are at least 600 black bears in the park. But hikers on the trails needn’t worry about them. They’re not like the Yellowstone bears. They’ll run as soon as they see you. And if they don’t, I will.