The word caretaker to me is like I guess most of us would probably look at it in the sense of
Between two people like someone taking care of something else and I rather someone taking care of a precious thing
So being a caretaker I had a responsibility to help
Help not only
Keep a good eye on things and can I be that human presence here?
But also share the beauty of the mountain in the winter when people can't get up here
My name is Seth Oren, I am the caretaker of the leconte lodge
Located in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park atop of mount leconte
Slightly better
Previously being a caretaker house essentially a vagabond so I would travel and and go all over the place because I
Had a shift in values, you know kind of a paradigm shift where I quit I put more
value into experiences and things that I could share with my grandchildren than I did with having a
extra zero in my bank account
For me the paradigm shifted right beside that I
Was told yeah, not not just chase finances or or whatever
Material things I got hit by a car go into a green light
And
Woke up in the hospital 18 years old. Yeah. We don't know like you're bleeding inside
I don't know how bad and so that was kind of like mm-hmm 18 years old like I could die tonight
Am I really living exactly the way that I want to be living my life
Life really is its temporary. We don't know when we're gonna die
So I took it to heart like I just took it seriously. Okay, like I'm just gonna live
exactly the way I want to live and if I'm not doing that and I'll check in with myself and and change that I
Doubled down on figuring out where I loved
Being a caretaker here, I think
It's the real benefit would be is that I could just be close to nature
and the most unique things about leconte lodge here is that it's located at
6,500 feet or just below 6500 feet in the southeast which that in itself is very unique in our country to have almost a
Canadian
Northwoods
type of environment with red spruce and balsam fir in the southeast in
Tennessee list the highest lodging service in the east
Maybe one of the offerings that that mountain gives besides say lodging and food it gives people an opportunity
To let their imagination take over again
there's no easy way to top of this mountain which is why it's kind of obscure and a lot people don't know about it because
it's
There's no roads. You have to walk, you know, 3,000 foot up a mountain to get here
That's cool
If you're not in the moment before you started you're gonna be in the moment when you get here
Or spend our whole life trying to be kids again
Right and like this it allows us to to get at least a step closer to that
