This Land, Your Land

Visitation to Great Smoky Mountains National Park fell by 4.8 percent from the previous year to just top 9 million in 2011, the Knoxville News Sentinel said today.

A years long decrease in camping at "frontcountry," or developed, campgrounds also continued.

Overall park visitation for 2011 was 9,008,831, down from 2010's tally of 9,463,538 visitors. A surge in visits during a mild December - 37.7 percent more than the last month of 2010 - kept the count from falling below 9 million, the newspaper's report says.

Park officials told the newspaper that visits to the Great Smokies may have risen in 2010 as vacationers avoided the Gulf after the BP oil spill, and then fallen last year after the spill had been cleaned up.

In reflection of a national trend, use of frontcountry campgrounds in the park has fallen 33 percent since 1995, plunging to 277,000 camper nights last year from 416,000 camper nights 16 years ago.

But the park's 90,444 backcountry camper nights in 2011 represented an increase from the 79,480 backcountry camper nights recorded in 2010.

The 800-square-mile park, which sits between Cherokee at its main North Carolina entrance and Gatlinburg at its main Tennessee entrance, is still the top national park for economic impact, the newspaper said.

Visits to Great Smoky Mountains National Park peaked at just over 10 million in 1999 and 2000, the News Sentinel said.

A years-long project to rehabilitate Appalachian Trail shelters in Great Smoky Mountains National Park has concluded with the completion of shelter reconstruction at Laurel Gap, the various groups involved report.

The Laurel Gap shelter, near the intersection of the Sterling Ridge and Balsam Mountain trails, is the 15th AT shelter rehabbed since 1999, according to The Daily Times in Maryville, Tennessee.

The Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, and the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club provided money and labor for the project over the years.

The project provided the shelters with improved natural lighting, a cooking area to separate food odors from the sleeping space, improved bunk access, new roofs and masonry repair, the removal of chain-link fences, and drainage improvements, the newspaper said.

More than 250 three-walled shelters are spaced about a day's hike apart from one another on the Appalachian Trail. In Great Smoky Mountains National Park, AT hikers are required to camp in the shelters.

The ATC points out that "shelters can be grimy and rodent-infested when hikers don't clean up after themselves, and they may be crowded." On the other hand, "shelters are the best places to stay dry in wet weather, ... they are often a good place to meet and talk with other hikers, and most have privies and water sources nearby. But ... more importantly, staying at shelters reduces hiker impact on the Trail environment."

MetroPulse magazine in Knoxville takes a look at obstacles facing the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory in its 14th year of counting the flora and fauna of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The main problem, of course is money.

Since the start of the study, "the number of known species in the park has nearly doubled, from 9,511 to 17,527, and research has so far identified 910 species new to science," Jesse Fox Mayshark's 3,700-word report says.

But, like what's happening at most institutions these days, money available for the ATBI has fallen off over the years and, in addition, there are fewer people available to do the hands-on work required.

As the Park Service dedicates more of its money to such needs as trail maintenance and saving hemlocks from the woolly adelgid, Discover Life in America, the non-profit organization running the study, has recruited volunteers as it looks for new sources of grants and donations. Among its approaches is allowing donors to name new species for $2,500 to $10,000.

Biologists say there could be 100,000 species inside Great Smoky Mountains, considered the most biodiverse park in the National Parks system. And, once the inventory is complete, continuing to monitor the park's inhabitants is the only way to understand the threats to the park’s many ecosystems.

“The problem that parks and natural areas have all over the world is that we only know a small fraction of the species that occur in each one," says Keith Langdon, a Park Service biologist who is in charge of inventory and monitoring for the Smokies. “In places where we have a mandate to protect everything, we need to know what’s there.”

As fans of the state's Mountains-to-Sea Trail celebrated the opening of a 6.5-mile segment in Raleigh last week, leaders of the Friends of the MST said Saturday they expect another 70 miles of trail to open by the end of 2012.

Kate Dixon and Jeff Brewer said in The News & Observer that the MST should measure about 610 miles after segments open near Boone, Pilot Mountain, Greensboro, Burlington, Hillsborough, Durham and Clayton in the next year.

The entire Mountains-to-Sea Trail is to eventually cover about 1,000 miles between Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Jockey's Ridge State Park.

The 6.5-mile Upper Neuse River Greenway Trail opened last Wednesday between the Falls Lake Dam and the WRAL soccer complex off of Perry Creek Road in North Raleigh. It is the first leg of what will eventually be a 28-mile trail along the Neuse River between Falls Lake and the Johnston County line. (Joe Miller has a nice Google mashup map of the trail at his Get Going NC blog.)

"Within five years we expect people will be able to walk from Clayton to Hillsborough on one continuous 150-mile trail," Dixon and Brewer said.

Still, more money and volunteer help will be needed to make the state-spanning trail a reality, the two said.

A report released by the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association today says that, for the second year in a row, the likely erosion of necessary funding for America’s national parks will harm the parks, visitors, and surrounding communities and businesses.

If Congress' Super Committee fails to craft a debt-reduction deal that passes Congress, mandatory across-the-board budget cuts will have a drastic impact on national parks, which the report says are "at the tipping point."

"In the past two years, park visitation has been higher than it has been in a decade — yet national parks suffer from an annual operations shortfall of $500-$600 million, and receive $325 million less per year than necessary to keep an $11 billion maintenance backlog from getting worse," the NCPA says in a news release about “Made in America: Investing in National Parks for Our Heritage and Our Economy” (large .pdf file).

"Further cuts could mean fewer rangers to greet visitors, reduced visitor center hours, shortened campground seasons, closure of entrance stations and backcountry trails, fewer educational programs, and reduced law enforcement patrols to safeguard America’s heritage."

Across-the-board discretionary cuts of 9 percent that are to go into effect if the Super Committee fails would take about $231 million from the national parks budget, the NCPA says. "This would unquestionably be devastating for many national parks, visitors, and the communities and businesses that depend on them," the group adds.

A recent NPCA study found that every federal dollar invested in national parks generates at least four dollars of economic value to the public.

Among 10 case studies of parks, the 54-page report says a 10 percent cut to the Blue Ridge Parkway budget would "almost certainly mean the layoff of some permanent employees and the elimination of seasonal hires altogether, resulting in the closure of some of the Parkway’s facilities." With even a 5 percent cut, "the Parkway would likely have to shorten hours at its visitor centers and possibly close some."

One way park managers make ends meet is by turning to volunteers for help. At Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited national park in the system, the park has generated $2.48 million worth of work from volunteers for "a hefty return on the investment in salaries for two volunteer coordinators. Yet volunteer coordination activities are often among the first functions to be sacrificed when a park hits tight budget times — those staffers are often reassigned to more pressing duties."

Parks also have depended on entrance and recreational fees, and private philanthropy and partnerships with businesses to stretch their budgets.

"But not all parks charge fees, and smaller parks often are unable to collect significant sums even when they do charge fees," the report concludes. "While the vast majority of Americans are happy to contribute to the upkeep of their parks, there is a question as to whether taxpayers should have to pay twice to visit the lands they own — once with their taxes and once at the gate."

Karen Chavez, of the Asheville Citizen-Times' Girls Gone Outdoors blog has outlined the winter closing schedule for campgrounds, roads, visitor centers, picnic grounds, LeConte Lodge, stores and stables in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

If you don't have plans for Saturday, there are at least 20 opportunities in North Carolina to participate in cleanup and rehabilitation work as part of National Public Lands Day. There are also guided hikes on the Appalachian Trail and free admission to National Parks as part of the annual celebration.

National Public Lands Day, September 24 this year, is the nation's largest, single-day volunteer event for public lands in the United States. Last year, 170,000 volunteers worked at over 2,080 sites in every state, the District of Columbia and in many U.S. territories.

Projects planned in North Carolina (link above) range from spreading wood chips along nearly a half mile of the Lake Trail at the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site in Flat Rock to removing aquatic debris and collecting water quality data at the Rachel Carson Coastal Reserve near Beaufort, and from trail work in the Nantahala National Forest's Panthertown Valley Backcountry Area near Cashiers and in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, to removing litter and debris at hurricane-damaged Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge near Rondanthe on the Outer Banks.

Opportunities to help also exist at local sites, like Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve in Cary and Fairview Park in Hillsborough.

Up the coast from Pea Island, entrance fees are waived for the day at the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kitty Hawk the only National Park in the state to charge for entry.

A 3.5-mile trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is among "25 Unforgettable National Park Hikes" compiled by the National Park Foundation.

The Andrews Bald Trail leaves from the parking area at Clingmans Dome, about 20 miles from the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, and "climbs almost 900 feet to the bald, mostly along a rocky creekbed, to a grassy, treeless mountaintop with panoramic views of the southern Smokies," the guide says. The trail is rated as moderate.

Andrews Bald, at 5,920 feet, is the highest bald in the Smokies. From there, the Fontana Reservoir can be seen below, the NPF guide says.

The full-color guide, the second in a series of National Parks owner's guides, is available as a free .pdf download at the link above.

The Smoky Mountain Hiking Blog reports today that Great Smoky Mountains National Park is considering a proposal to require reservations for all backcountry camping permits through the government's recreation.gov site.

Great Smokies camping permits, which are now free, could cost anywhere from $4 per person per night to $10 per reservation plus $5 per person, depending on which proposal is adopted, the proposal says.

Recreation.gov is the centralized reservation service for camping at U.S. Department of Interior and U.S. Forest Service recreational areas.

The blog quotes a Backpacker magazine forum that publishes the proposal and a report by WBIR TV in Knoxville, Tenn., that confirms the existence of the proposal but provides very little information. It wasn't on the park's page or the NPS new release page at mid-morning today.

Moving Great Smokies backcountry camping permits to the recreation.gov system will speed the process of obtaining permits and free park staff to do other things, the proposal says. The online service is available 24 hours a day.

Comments on the proposal will be accepted until August 26 at grsmcomments@nps.gov or Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 107 Park Headquarters Road, Gatlinburg, Tennessee 37738.

Public hearings have been set for 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. August 16 at the park's Old Oconoluftee Visitor Center, and 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. August 18 at the park headquarters lobby.

Nanci Bompey of the Asheville Citizen-Times wrote about Great Smoky Mountains National Park's new Oconaluftee Visitor Center, which opened Friday and is the "first structure built specifically as a full-service visitor center on the North Carolina side of the park."

The 6,300-square-foot center was announced in December 2009 as a replacement for the 1,700-square-foot building originally built by the Civilian Conservation Corps as a magistrate court. The new building was built with $3 million in private money.

The original plan for the park called for a visitor center at the Cherokee, North Carolina, entrance and near Gatlinburg, Tennessee, but the eastern center never was funded.

The center's exhibits will focus on the human and cultural history of the area - including the Cherokee, local farmers, lumber companies and the Civilian Conservation Corps - and present $550,000 worth of interpretive information bought by Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park mainly through sales of their specialty license plate.

The visitor center also has 1,700 square feet of accessible restrooms, Bompey noted.

The Oconaluftee Visitor Center is on U.S. 441 near Cherokee and open 8 a.m.-6 p.m. daily. A formal dedication of the building is scheduled for 11 a.m. April 15.