Sunrise At Myrtle Point

            This past Sunday morning, my wife and daughter and I awoke at 5:30 a.m. in the darkness of a tiny rustic cabin at the top of Mt. LeConte, the third highest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

            We had hiked to the mountain top (elevation 6,593 feet) on Saturday with our old friends Sarah Sheppeard and Ben Alford and many new friends from the Church of the Good Samaritan in Knoxville. 

            We were taking part in a tradition that began nearly thirty years ago when a group of hardy Whisky-palians from the Church of the Good Samaritan summited the mountain and set up overnight camp at the rustic Mt. LeConte Lodge.  There they enjoyed food, fellowship, and being Whisky-palians, a drink or two.  As they say, where two or more Episcopalians are together, there will be a fifth! 

            And since that time, brothers and sisters from the Church of the Good Samaritan have been gathering on the summit of Mt. LeConte on the fourth weekend of June each year for a mountain top experience, literally and figuratively. 

            I am not a member of the Church of the Good Samaritan.  I am a Baptist in residence at Cavalry Episcopal Church in downtown Memphis. (Elevation 3 feet, not counting the steeple.)  But my friends Ben and Sarah invited the Haltom family to temporarily move our letter (as we old Baptists say) to the Church of the Good Samaritan to get us over 6,000 feet closer to Heaven.

            It had taken us over five hours to traverse the Alum Cave Trail some 5 ½ miles to the top of Mt. LeConte.  Like Sir Edmund Hillary, we did it because it was there.  And unlike Sir Edmund, we did it without Tenzing Norgay or oxygen canisters. 

            Well, O.K., Mt. LeConte is not Everest, but for a boy from Memphis, where the highest peak is Mt. Moriah Road, scaling LeConte was quite a feat.

            Upon our arrival at the summit, we checked into our cabin.  The sparton accommodations came as quite a shock to my wife whose idea of roughing it is staying at a hotel without room service.  Our Mt. LeConte Lodge cabin had no electricity, running water, bath, shower, or even a sink.  Just bunk beds, a wooden table and chair, and a kerosene lantern. 

            The restroom was about 100 yards away.  (Once again, I was grateful to be a life-long member of the male gender.  Unless there is serious bidness to be conducted, we men folk can find a restroom anywhere there is a tree or bush, and sometimes we don’t even need that.)

            We spent the remainder of the day recovering in rocking chairs on the porch of our cabin, and enjoying the breathtaking view while munching on leftover M&Ms trail mix. 

            When evening came, we gathered with our fellow Good Samaritans in the lodge dining hall where we enjoyed a mountain man’s dinner of meat and potatoes and cornbread.  During the dinner I asked the lodge manager how they got food to the top of the mountain to stock the lodge kitchen. 

            “Llamas” he replied.

            “I beg you’re pardon?”  I asked him.

            “Llamas,” he repeated.

            You read that right, Grizzly Adams-breath.  Our dinner had been delivered by a pack of llamas.

            After dinner, we hiked to Cliff Top, one of the three summits of Mt. LeConte, where we watched the sunset although it was obscured by the smoke of the Great Smoky Mountains.

            And then, when darkness came, we climbed into the bunks of our little cabin and, to borrow a line from Huck Finn, slept like dead people.

            And then came Sunday morning, and one of those mountain top moments that can make even an agnostic or an atheist whisper, “Oh my God!”

            At 5:30 a.m., I aroused my wife and our princess out of our warm bunks.  We quickly dressed, and with flashlights in hand, we hiked approximately one mile through the darkness to a summit called Myrtle Point, on the eastern side of Mt. LeConte.  And there, we watched the sunrise.

            I have lived nearly sixty years, and I have seen some remarkable things.  I have seen Baptists dance and dogs catch Frisbees, and I actually once saw the Tennessee Vols beat the Florida Gators in football (really, so help me, I did.)  But watching the sun rise over the Smoky Mountains at Myrtle Point was one of those incredible moments that puts everything in perspective.  It is during such a mountain top moment that you stand in awe of God’s creation and realize that all the petty annoyances and concerns of your life don’t amount to a hill of M&Ms trail mix. 

            My wife and daughter and I stood at Myrtle Point for over a half hour, just watching in silence, and quietly expressing thanks to God for letting us be a part of His creation.

            And then, we joined the Good Samaritan Whiskey-palians from Knoxville for a Sunday morning Eucharist. 

            The problem, of course, with a mountain top experience is that you have to come down from the mountain.  (Just ask Moses.)  I am now back in the valley of the shadow of law practice, where I fear evil from other lawyers, and my rod and my staff aren’t exactly comforting me.

            But for the rest of my life I will have the memory of watching the sunrise at Myrtle Point and I hope and pray that I never get over it.

            And who knows?  Maybe those Good Samaritan Whiskey-palians in Knoxville will invite me back next year.  While this old Baptist is in no rush for the day when the role is called up yonder (and, hopefully, I’ll be there), I would like to climb 6,000 feet closer to Heaven one more time.