Mt. LeConte Lodge

When it comes to a place to stay inside the most visited national park in the country, Mount LeConte Lodge (865/429-5704, www.leconte-lodge.com) is the only game around--and it's 5.5 miles from and 2560 feet above the nearest road. Jack Huff built LeConte Lodge in the 1920s, and when the park came into existence the lodge was allowed to remain. Various environmental hard-liners have argued for the demise of the venerable lodge, but public sentiment has overwhelmed them every time.

LeConte Lodge holds about 50 guests, either in cabins or private rooms within cabins. Rooms run $93 a night per person, (children age 10 and under are $72.50) and while this does include breakfast and dinner (and lunch if you're staying more than one night), accommodations are extremely rustic: no electricity, hot water, or telephones. You'll need to carry up your own towels. The flush toilets stop working in cold weather, so you may have to use a pit toilet. Most of dinner and breakfast comes out of cans carried up the mountain by pack llamas--used because they damage the trails less than horses. The staff serves hearty meals family-style, a great chance to mingle and swap stories with other travelers. The sunset over Clingmans Dome is the evening's sole planned entertainment, and guests retire to their toolshed-sized cabins with wool blankets and kerosene heaters to beat back the cold.

And most guests wouldn't have it any other way.

LeConte Lodge enjoys more demand for its rooms than any other hostelry in the region. Open from late March-November, the lodge accepts reservations for the following year beginning on October 1 (or the following business day if October 1 falls on a weekend). To contact by mail, write Wilderness Lodging, 250 Apple Valley Road, Sevierville, TN 37862. Reservations for the entire year are usually snatched up completely within two weeks. But folks have been known to cancel--it won't hurt to call at the last minute to see if a cabin's opened up.