Celebrating 100 (and 600)

Smoky Jack with Paul Adams

By Tom Layton

It was my honor to participate in the 100th anniversary celebration for LeConte Lodge.

July 16-18 marked the centennial of the first guests who stayed in a 1925 tent camp, which became LeConte Lodge the following year. I was disappointed that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park did not mark the occasion, as the lodge is so instrumental in the park's history.

July 17 marked my 12th visit to the lodge. I overestimated my physical conditioning and hiked up the Boulevard Trail, which seemed to be even more strenuous than the last time I climbed this route, at age 57 back in 2012. I was late for my check-in time, but the lodge staff accommodated me.

Before my camera battery gave out, I captured this view of Mount Kephart and the Jumpoff

Lodge manager John Northrup introduced me at supper with some nice compliments about our book. If you visit the lodge, you can buy a copy there for the same price as on Amazon. Or you can order a copy here.

After supper, I answered questions and shared stories. The most popular topic was Smoky Jack, the German shepherd who accompanied Paul Adams when he established his "Basin Spring Camp" in 1925. Paul trained Jack to deliver groceries to the mountaintop. He would put a shopping list in Jack's saddlebags and send him down to Ogle's Store in Gatlinburg. The grocer would fill the order and send mail up to Paul Adams.

One day in the spring of 1926, after Adams had spent the winter on Mount Le Conte building a cabin, Smoky Jack delivered a letter of dismissal from Paul's employer. The Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association was not content with Adams work and was about to replace him with Jack Huff, who built the lodge and managed the operation until 1960.

You can imagine how lodge guests reacted to the notion of using a man's dog to fire him. The story of Smoky Jack resonated further than I expected.

On our hike down on July 18, we met Northrup coming up for his second ascent of the morning. He was carrying a backpack with paper goods that the lodge needed. Those usually come up on the preseason helicopter airlift, but one pallet was not delivered in time.

Northrup didn't want to overload the llamas who bring fresh eggs and laundry to the lodge, especially since the weather has been so hot. So he became a llama himself. On July 16, he made three trips up the Alum Cave Trail, hauling supplies. That's more than 30 miles of heavy hiking.

On the morning of July 17, he brought up another load and signed in with his 600th trip up the mountain.

When we met him on the Alum Cave Bluff trail July 18, one of my fellow hikers, Dr. Danny Birchmore, nicknamed him "Smoky Jack Northrup."

Congratulations, Smoky Jack! You're now in a race with Larry Russell as the leading active climbers on Mount LeConte. As I write this, Russell leads 630-603 in lifetime ascents. Northrup leads Dewey Slusher 43-42 in 2025. Larry and John rank 12th and 13th on our lifetime honor roll. To enter the top 10, they will need to surpass 1960s lodge manager Herrick Brown, whose total has been estimated at 700, and Margaret Stevenson, 718.

Earlier this year, John and his wife Bonnie reached a lifetime total of 1,000 climbs.