The Two Sides of Popularity

Being careful about the where and when of choosing a hike in the Smokies is nothing new to Terry Maddox, who recently retired from 26 years as executive director of the Great Smoky Mountains Association. Upon arriving in 1990, he learned quickly which trails to avoid to keep from having “a hiking experience that was almost like going to the mall.”

Over the last few years, that skill has proven even more valuable, as the park has broken record after record for visitation. Attracting an estimated 10,712,675 people in 2015, the year clocked in as the all-time high for visitation to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. That’s almost half a million more visits than 1999, the previous high-water mark, and 600,000 more than 2014. 

The national parks are currently celebrating 100 years of the National Park Service’s existence, leading everyone to predict that 2016 will be another banner year for park visitation. 

But high visitation is a two-sided coin. On the one hand, having more people come means that the park service is fulfilling its mission of connecting people to the wild places that sit at the soul of America. But on the other, more people means more demand for programs and services and more need for resource protection, law enforcement, and facilities maintenance. The park isn’t a business: More visitation doesn’t mean more revenue, especially because the Smokies is one of the few parks that doesn’t charge an entrance fee. It’s not legally allowed to, a fact that stems from an agreement formed when the park began. If it did collect a fee comparable to what other national parks its size bring in, the Smokies would find itself with some $80 million more a year. By comparison, the federal allocation has wavered between $17 and $21 million over the past decade. 

But thanks to nonprofits like the GSMA and Friends of the Smokies, which have grown up to support the Smokies, the park isn’t completely left hanging. 

“The upshot of increased visitation for us historically means there is increased support for the park,” says Holly Demuth, North Carolina director for Friends of the Smokies. That support comes in monetary form—through cash dropped into donation boxes or given during fundraising events or, for the GSMA, through sales at the booksstores it runs in and around the park. 

It also comes in the form of volunteer hours. In 1995, the park had 653 volunteers performing 51,960 hours of work, increasing to a high in 2012 of 161,835 hours by 3,016 volunteers. Last year, the park reported 2,601 volunteers working 113,730 hours. Those figures don’t include volunteers working with Friends of the Smokies or out of the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. 

Park lovers are looking forward to another century of tranquillity and adventure in the country’s national parks. For the Smokies, that goal isn’t without its challenges, but the flow of visitors isn’t likely to slow anytime soon. Ultimately, park supporters agree, that’s a good thing. 

“A picture is beautiful, but it’s nothing like standing there and experiencing it,” Maddox says. “We want the next generation to understand the importance and relevance of the national parks we’re all trying to preserve and protect.”