In print for the first time in fifty years, Mount Le Conte is a reissue of the important 1966 self-published memoir by Paul J. Adams (1901-1985), a well-known Tennessee naturalist and the first custodian of the Smoky Mountain's majestic summit in the years before the area was declared a national park. Appointed custodian of Mount Le Conte in 1925 by the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association-the organization leading the national park efforts that would come to fruition in 1934-Adams went to work immediately and spent a year making the camp suitable for overnight visitors. Mount Le Conte, a massive mile-high formation extending five miles from the main divide of the Great Smoky Mountains, with its rugged landscapes, rushing streams, and fecund forests, was considered a prime showplace in efforts to establish the Smokies as a national park. In addition to an extensive introduction, the editors have augmented the original text of Mount Le Conte with several photographs and sketches gleaned from Adams's personal papers, resulting in a fuller, more complete reconstruction of Adams's role in establishing the camp that would later come to be known as Le Conte Lodge. An important source on the fascinating history of Mount Le Conte in the pre-Park era, this book is a companion to the recently published Smoky Jack: The Adventures of a Dog and his Master on Mount Le Conte (University of Tennessee Press, 2016).

In 1925, Paul Adams was appointed custodian of Mount Le Conte, the third-highest peak of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. His job was to welcome tourists, give guided tours, and establish a camp that would become known as LeConte Lodge, which still stands in what has become America's most popular national park. Adams had everything he needed for the job: a passion for the outdoors, a love of hiking, a desire to preserve the native habitat while welcoming visitors, and the companionship of a remarkable dog. During his time on the mountains, Adams trained Smoky Jack to be a pack-dog-not just carrying supplies but actually making the four-hour trip to a store in Gatlinburg and back alone. Over the next nine months, Adams and his dog would become inseperable. Smoky Jack became his assistant, bodyguard, and best friend. Throughout Smoky Jack, readers will also gain a unique glimpse into the early days of the Great Smoky Mountains region during the decade before it was name a national park in 1934. Adams describes the trials and triumphs he and the indomitable German sherpherd faced as they exemplified the ancient relationship between man and dog on Mount Le Conte, building trails, guiding visitors, and making a life in nature. Paul Adams's faithful Smoky Jack stays by his side until the end.

An Englishman is plucked from his native land at a young age and sent to the USA by his parents. He transferred to a world which he had previously only dreamt of. With his family he was bombed out during the 1939-1945 war and was brought up in Reading, Berkshire. He would eventually find out that his earlier years had not really prepared him for the wide, new world he was thrust into. His arrival in the United States of America filled him awe and much trepidation. This happened in the 1950s and he had little choice but to make the best of it. He joined the American Air Force and this action was to set him on a path which would have a profound effect on his later life. In the service of Uncle Sam he was sent back to England for overseas duty. Love interests are in abundance and what started out as a blissful 'chocolate factory' experience would soon develop into heart wrenching events. Later he would use some of his experiences in the United States Air Force and the USA to his advantage when later he was pitched into the exciting world of Night Clubs and later still the night life of Amsterdam. Hank Williams songs are used to illustrate and set some of the scenes.

In 1974, Paul M. Fink published Backpacking Was the Only Way, a memoir of exploration in the Smoky Mountain backcountry that is long out of print. The basis of the book was a journal kept from 1914 to 1938, combined with evocative photographs that Fink compiled into a manuscript he called Mountain Days. The manuscript is now considered to be a unique and insightful first-person account of the region. Containing rare historical accounts of the manways, camps, and cabins once used by adventurers exploring the mountains before the advent of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, this is the first widely-accessible publication of Mountain Days. This edition features a new foreword by Ken Wise, professor and director of the Great Smoky Mountain Regional Project at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville's John C. Hodges Library. An open access edition of Mountains Days is available from the Hunter Library at Western Carolina University.