A Conversation With the Smokies’ Backcountry Guardian

Christine Hoyer has always loved the outdoors and backcountry exploration. After a first career in research psychology, she decided it was time for a change and quit to volunteer on the Appalachian Trial. That led to a job building trails, which led to a career with the National Park Service, which led her to the Smokies. She’s been there for 10 years now, five of those years in her current position as backcountry management specialist—the “dream job” of managing backcountry recreation in the nation’s most visited national park.

Where did your passion for backcountry recreation begin? 

It started at a really early age. I was a Girl Scout, I was an outdoors kid, I was always outside playing. Thankfully my parents saw national parks as a place to vacation, so we traveled throughout my entire childhood, every summer, to national parks. I had some really awesome trips when I was in college, adventures that sort of kept it alive for me. This wasn’t my first career, but anytime I was looking for a vacation I was always looking for a national park.

What makes the Smokies special? 

It’s hard to narrow it down, but the way I always think about it is if you dropped somebody at Clingmans Dome and they got that expansive view of the mountains, and you blindfolded them and you brought them to Big Creek down by the river, they’d think they were in a completely different place. From Cataloochee to Luftee, from Cosby to Deep Creek, there’s such a diversity of everything here. When I started at the park people would ask me how long I planned to stay. I said, ‘I think I’ll stay until I see everything there is to see and learn everything there is to learn.’ I think it took me about a year to realize I was never going to exhaust all this place has to offer.

What would people find most surprising about your job?

Everyone thinks I walk around with a bluebird on my shoulder out in the backcountry every day, and I wish that’s what it was, but there’s a lot to this job. I think one of the things that would perhaps surprise people is every day is completely different. I come in with a plan, how I think I’ll spend my day, and something will happen. There will be an incident with a bear to close a trail, there will be a foot log that gets washed out. It’s constantly changing, just like the conditions in the backcountry. 

The Smokies is the nation’s most-visited national park. How do you balance keeping that backcountry experience open to all with protecting what the park sets out to preserve?

I think that’s always the challenge—”preserve, protect and provide for the enjoyment of.” If you’re trying to preserve and protect it, the easiest way to do that is to not have people in it. As soon as you intermix people into that equation, you’re going to have impact. So how do we minimize that impact? Anytime there’s a lot of use, the biggest challenge is trying to make sure that people are prepared for whatever adventure they’re undertaking. If you’re prepared, you’re more likely to have a good experience and you’re less likely to do things on the fly that might have more of an impact in the backcountry. It’s all about education. It’s all about trying to teach our visitors before they get here about how to minimize their impact.