A Dedicated Daughter of the Great Smokies
Ann Houghton and friend Grace at the Davis-Queen House, a centerpiece of the park’s Mountain Farm Museum.
Volunteering for Great Smoky Mountains National Park has been one of the most rewarding and enjoyable activities in my life for the past 30+ years.
In the early 1990s, I served as a trail patroller on the upper end of Thomas Divide Trail. Then, upon returning to North Carolina after living in Florida for three years, I signed on with the Adopt-a-Campsite program that was launched in 1997. Since then I’ve maintained five backcountry campsites at various times. I have also jumped in on a few ad hoc assignments over the years, including trail rehab, Smokemont Campground maintenance and Kuwohi (formerly Clingmans Dome) roving.
All told I have logged more than 1,000 volunteer hours in the park. But that total pales in comparison with the amount of work accomplished by many other Smokies volunteers, some of whom have volunteered for thousands upon thousands of hours in various positions as part of the National Park Service’s Volunteers-in-Parks program. With the chaos that has been created within the NPS and other federal agencies since early this year, it seems safe to say that volunteer support has become more critical than ever in our national parks.
One of the Smokies’ most dedicated volunteers was Ann Houghton of Balsam, North Carolina, who perished from hypothermia near Enloe Creek Trail on a backpacking trip this past winter.
Ann served more than 4,000 hours in many roles: trail maintainer, cemetery assistant, native plants gardener, resource steward, special events demonstrator, litter patrol volunteer, Leave No Trace ambassador and visitor services assistant. (No, she did not serve as volunteer superintendent.) In 2022 she was recognized as the Southeast Region recipient of the 2022 George and Helen Hartzog Awards for Outstanding Volunteer Service across the National Park Service.
I’m not sure if anyone has ever revered the park as she did, especially the hidden spirit of its wilderness, to borrow a phrase from Theodore Roosevelt. If Ann wasn’t on a backpacking trip in the Smokies, chances are she was planning one for whenever she wasn’t busy volunteering in the park. She may have lived in Balsam, but she was truly at home in the Smokies backcountry.
One of her favorite places to camp—one that she often spoke of knowing that I maintained it—was campsite 52, situated at 5,000 feet elevation up on Thomas Divide. One late-winter afternoon as I was nearing Mingus Mill parking area after the short hike to Mingus Cemetery, I heard someone gaining ground on me. Sure enough, it was Ann returning from her latest overnight at camp 52. And she, of course, was carrying a lot more weight than I was and had hiked much farther.
For many years Ann was a Saturday fixture at Oconaluftee Visitor Center, one of the busiest in the entire national park system. In addition to sharing her vast knowledge and experience with adult visitors at the information desk, Ann always made it a point to track down kids in the OVC store and give them stickers. She delighted in this simple gesture, and so did they.
Above all, Ann was a kind and gentle soul, qualities that seem needed more than ever these days. With good fortune and responsible stewardship, Great Smoky Mountains National Park will endure forever, but no, it will not be quite the same without Ann Houghton.