Scree - March 01, 2011
Looking at Le Conte from Kephart, a long way!
900 Miler or What I'd Do for a Patch...
National Parks Traveler had a recent article about the 900 Miler Club of the Smoky Mountains. The goal of the participants is to hike the 900 miles of trails in Great Smoky Mountain National Park and they are rewarded with a patch.
Not only do these hikers have to hike the 900 miles of trail; but they have to re-hike many miles in order to reach all of the trails. It seems that many of the Park's trails do not start from a trailhead. Miles must be repeated just to reach the start of the trail.
So if you were able to hike 10 miles per day in the mountainous terrain, it would take at least 90 days to complete the hikes.
Any takers? I will say it is a pretty good looking patch! :)
6000 Foot Peaks
We are trying to climb the 6000 foot peaks in Tennessee. There are only 10 of them - Clingmans Dome, Mt Collins, Mt Le Conte, Mt Kephart, Mt Sequoyah, Mt Chapman, Tri-Corner Knob, Mt Guyot, Old Black, and Roan Mt. The trick is that we are climbing each with at least a 3000 foot elevation gain and no linking, one climb = one peak.
Hiking the AT from Newfound Gap, north, we would only be able to claim one mountain and then only after climbing 3000 feet. We could do that same route five times; but we are not going to do that. We also want to see more of the Park and not use shuttles. An example of a 6000er that we have done ... our route for Mt Kephart was Alum Cave to the top of Le Conte, then the Boulevard, finally the Jumpoff, and the summit. Oh, then we had to return to the trailhead. No shortcutting back to Newfound Gap. That gave us an ascent of Kephart; but not both Le Conte and Kephart. We climbed over 6000 feet and 20 miles that day; but we only left the trailhead once. We only counted one mountain.
We are mapping and doing adventure guides for our routes, The Kephart Guide should be completed soon (cloudhiking) and then Le Conte via Rainbow and Bull Head will follow.
We look forward to the challenge, it is not as big as a 900 Miler but it still should be fun. Care to join us? Maybe, we could make our own patch. hmm :)
