I saw the Flying Saucer in its foggy finery. Be prepared. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an awesome place, but it attracts a wide cross section of tourists, some of whom look like they have not set foot out of doors (or off the sofa) in many a year. Why such people should determine to schlepp up the summit walkway is a mystery, but you can see their heaving bodies beached upon numerous benches lining the path. Let's not mention the Korean tourist I saw wonder off the pavement to get a closer video of the sow black bear and her cubs. Or the teeming parking lot, a feature celebrated in early postcards. Or the singularly uninspired architecture of the Saucer itself, whose only redeeming benefit, other than its nickname, might be as a bad example of ADA-compliant design.

Nearby Mount LeConte offers a hard but infinitely more rewarding experience. Climb it, perhaps even stay overnight in the lodge, and sneak a peak of Clingman's Dome from the Cliff Tops overlook, to the west, through binoculars, which have the effect of making the Flying Saucer look like a backyard waterslide. Some of the slideshow photos are, in fact, from my hike to LeConte Lodge, a superb mountaintop retreat and the only facility of its kind in the park. (Check out the excellent blog High on LeConte.) By all means stay overnight; to reach it I took the Alum Cave Trail, which passes through a narrow rock bridge and beneath a fabulous overhang (beware of falling ice in cold weather). My chief regret about LeConte, but happily a great excuse to return some day, is that my ascent did not overlap with the fabled llamas that resupply the lodge throughout the season.