Alum Cave Trail to Mount LeConte – Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Alum Cave Trail to Mount LeConte – Great Smoky Mountains National Park
LENGTH: 11.0 MILES, ELEVATION GAIN: 3,061 FEET, TRAIL TYPE: OUT AND BACK
TREKKING WILD Difficulty RATING – HARD
The Alum Cave trail to Mount LeConte, in my opinion, is the best hike in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It is 11 miles long and gains over 3,000 feet of elevation, so it can be a challenging hike depending on your fitness level. We gave it a Trekking Wild Difficulty rating of hard. Be ready for a fairly long, uphill hike with some of the best scenery the Smokys have to offer.
When to Hike Alum Cave to Mount LeConte
My favorite time to hike the Alum Cave Trail to Mount LeConte is in the fall. The last week of October or the first week of November usually coincides with peak fall colors. It’s a great time to visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park and to do this hike. Other times of the year can bring additional challenges with the weather. Spring in the Smokys can be very rainy, so make sure you have rain gear with you. In the summer, you have to contend with heat and humidity. Late fall temperatures are just right, and the scenery is hard to beat.
Hiking the Trail
The trail starts off by hiking along Alum Cave Creek, leading you up to the first main feature of the trail, Arch Rock. This is a massive black slate rock that has had an arch carved out of it over time. There are stairs and a metal railing to help you hike through the rock. At this point, the trail begins to climb.
As you continue the hike, the trail will start to open up, bringing you to Inspiration Point. Directly in front of you will be two knife-like protrusions. This is Little Duckhawk Ridge and Big Duckhawk Ridge.
At 2.3 miles, you will come to Alum Cave Bluffs. The view from within the bluff is quite spectacular. This massive, dusty rock overhang is a great spot to shelter from the Smokys’ frequent rains. This is also where a lot of hikers will end their hike. We will be continuing on.
At roughly 3 miles in, the trail starts to get steeper. Now you are really climbing. At 4.1 miles, you come to the remains of an old rockslide. The park service has put a metal railing to help you cross this section. As you near the lodge on a foggy, misty day, the forest takes on a more moody feeling.
At an elevation of 6,593 feet sits the LeConte Lodge. With a reservation, you can stay in one of the rustic cabins. There is a pit toilet and dining hall at the lodge. Day hikers can buy a sack lunch or baked goods. They also have a gift shop.
At this point in the hike, you might think you are done, but you haven’t reached the summit yet. The summit lies four-tenths of a mile past the lodge. You won’t find a grand vista at this summit, just a pile of rocks marking the top of Mount LeConte. To get the grand view, you should backtrack three-tenths of a mile to the Cliff Top trail. On a clear day, Cliff Top will give you that satisfying view you expect when summiting a mountain.
Since this is an out-and-back trail, all that is left to do is to hike back down. Hiking down offers you the chance to see those views again from a slightly different perspective. It’s always interesting to me how different a hike can look on the way down versus on the way up.
July 27, 2024
