Bruised Egos, Asses, and Ears on Mt. LeConte

While I may favor some other hikes more due to nostalgia and proximity, I think the Smoky’s Mt. LeConte is—if you’re okay with 11 miles and 2,763 feet of elevation gained—pound for pound the best hike in the general areas when it comes to views. There are no boring views on the entire hike. It start following a very picturesque brook, which it crisscrosses several times via thin log bridges, before starting the real ascent to the summit, which affords you changing views of Smoky Mountain National Park the entire time (interspersed with a cave, some rock formations, and a gorgeous pine first just before you reach the top). These views are the reason I try to do the hike every year. 

I’ve hiked LeConte in the fall, summer, and winter, and without a doubt, fall is the prettiest. It’s also the most crowded, which is why two weekends ago, I woke up at 3:30 AM to leave for LeConte by 4:00 (it’s only an hour and 50 minutes away, but I built in a Dunkin Donuts stop). I arrived by 6:00—still pitch black now in October—and was on my way via headlamp. 

I don’t know if I’m just in better shape than I’ve been or if a week hiking in Utah the week prior just has me conditioned really well, but I completed the hike in record time. In the past, I’ve always watched the sunrise from Inspiration Point, a little over two miles into the hike, but I got there this last time with a full forty minutes left till the sun would rise, so I simply pressed on. I caught the very first sun at the summit and was in my car driving back to Asheville by 11:00. Not too shabby for a man approaching 40 faster than he’d like, but it wasn’t without some bodily wear and tear. 

I’m going to blame everyone but my aging body for my injuries. 

I will blame this nice gentleman I met on the walk up the mountain for my first fall (and the titular busted ass…and the busted back that didn’t make the title because it didn’t aliterate as well). I’m going to blame a trail runner for the second. The third injury falls squarely on a group of Gen Z hooligans who were far too comfortable discussing weird shit in public. 

The nice gentleman I met on the walk up was a young man from my home state of Pennsylvania I helped find his way back onto the trail after he got misdirected in the pitch black of the Alum Cave. Since we were the only two out that early, we finished the second half of the hike together, and in one of those the-world-really-is-small-unless-you-have-to-paint-it moments, he ended up being not just from Pennsylvania but Northeast Pennsylvania! Now, not only am I going to blame him for my first injury, but I’m going to give him credit for how fast I finished the hike. I’m 37. He was 22. I’m typically a fast hiker, but I’m sure I subconsciously sped up a bit to show that wasn’t old and decrepit. Because that worked so well and I reached the top in record time and got to watch the morning fog gloriously burn off to reveal and amazing view,  I walked just as confidently and just as fast…down the mountain. 

As it always goes, it worked well until it didn’t, and one too-fast step on a slick rock sent both feet out from under me and my backpack—and thus back—landing squarely on said rock. My headphones flew off. My water bottle got thrown into a bush. And obviously, this was in front of a large group of young people, two of whom rushed over to assist old brittle me up and retrieve my flung possessions. 

My ass and back hurt. My ego hurt more.

I was much more careful the rest of the way down, that is until I heard pounding footsteps and heavy breathing behind me on a particularly slick section of rock that was equipped with hand wires to grab onto (much of the very slick, very rocky Alum Cave Trail is equipped with these hand wires). I turned around to see what was making these sounds, lost my balance, and almost toppled off the rocks I was walking on. Luckily, I had a good grip on the wires, so I didn’t fall down, but instead just hung and banged into the rock wall, hand first. As I was hanging there, hands bleeding, a trial runner breezed past me, not stopping to see how I was nor even acknowledging that I was hanging on a rock above him. This only further intensifies my hatred for trail runners.  

Despite having a bruised ego, busted back and ass, and bloody hand, the most egregious injury was to my ears…and delicate sensibilities. At the very end of the hike, I got stuck behind a very un-self-aware group of young people—big theatre-kid energy emanating from this group—plodding at a glacial pace along the last portion of the trail, discussing…panties. 

I’m not one that typically gets squeamish about certain words. Give me all the moist cake in moist places you want, ya know? But something about how the one kid kept saying panties and the context in which he was discussing it made me ill. 

“I never remove female panties from a washing machine…or a dryer,” he proclaimed loudly and proudly to his friends like he was the king of gentlemanly behavior, “because I respect women.” I unfortunately (or…probably very fortunately) don’t have any additional context for how this conversation started, but he kept going. “I’ve seen guys remove female panties from a dryer, and I think it’s disrespectful. As a man, I never touched a pair of panties without permission.” 

‘Just say underwear, you fucking creep,” I wanted to scream. I know deep in my bones that this gentleman regularly complains about getting friend-zoned and whines that it’s because he’s…a nice guy. I really love the Mt. LeConte hike but was very happy to arrive back at my car and not hear a young man who was the human personification of a fedora say panties ever again.