Visitation to Great Smoky Mountains National Park boomed in October/NPS
Visitation to national parks this October had to be higher than 2013 numbers, if only because of last year's partial government shutdown that closed the parks. But this October saw a tremendous bounce at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where visitation was the highest in nearly 30 years.
Park officials say 1,261,104 people visited Great Smoky last month, adding that October typically is the second busiest month of the year for the park as visitors come to see the park's fall foliage. This year, visitors continued to come to the park despite record rainfall at the beginning of the month, a strong wind event, and a major snow storm on the last day of the month, park official said. Before this October, that month's highest visitation came in 1987, when 1,576,500 visitors came to the park.
Although visitation through the park's major entrances at Gatlinburg, Townsend, and Cherokee was up, outlying areas led the way in making this month the fourth-highest October on record, park officials said. Visitation at the outlying areas of the park in October was 73 percent above the 20-year average. Outlying areas include places like Foothills Parkway, Cosby, Big Creek, Greenbrier, Deep Creek, Cataloochee, and Abrams Creek.
In light of a lawsuit pending against the park in a bid to overturn a $4 per night per person backcountry fee, notable among October's visitation numbers were those for backcountry use. October saw 10,294 backcountry users, which brought the yearly tally to 80,595. According to Park Service numbers, such high use hadn't been seen since October 2011, when 9,488 people headed into the backcountry and the year-to-date total was 81,815. Prior to that, one needed to go back to October 1999, when 11,414 backcountry users were counted, and the year-to-date tally stood at 85,041.
Visitation has been up nearly every month this year with over eight million people visiting the park so far. The highest annual visitation on record was set in 1999 when 10,283,598 people visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Through this October, visitation to Great Smoky stood at 8,849,976, according to Park Service data.
Comments
There may have been pent up demand. As I tried to go last year and the park was closed for sequestration for a most of October for the Gov't shutdown.
Start taxing backpackers to backcountry camp, and more people start backcountry camping.
And the National Park Service never gives away land from within the borders of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to politically important people either.
Certainly no indication that backcountry use is down due to the fee some continue to rail about. If nothing else, the fee and permit requirement should give a pretty good handle on those numbers. Some other parks around the country are also reporting very strong visitation this year, probably a reflection of an improving economy and lower gas prices, among other factors.
Backcountry camping was down more than %20 the first year they implemented the backcountry fee, J Thomas. I pass empty campsite after empty campsite and am out every weekend. The NPS is lying here because of the lawsuit that shows they have reduced visitation to the backcountry and they are using the new reservation system to do so. Like TN backpacker says, institute a fee and camping increases? Yeah, I got some swampland you may be interested in as well.
re: "institute a fee and camping increases?" In some situations, that's quite possible, especially if the fee is tied to a reservation system. If people are confident they won't have any worries about not having a campsite at the end of a hike, I can certainly see an increase in use, especially for those who don't live within just a couple of hours drive of the park. Perhaps making visits more convenient for those "outsiders" is part of the issue with some commenters.
It's sad to see a couple of regular users of this site are so absolutely negative about any and everything involving the park. The constant vitrol certainly reduces their credibilty with me. Is the NPS perfect? Of course not, but a huge number of visitors to the Smokies year after year must enjoy their trip, or they wouldn't keep showing up in large numbers.
I was in the park 25 of the 31 days in October and it was packed many of those days. I live close to the park, and there were many days this year that my patience got tested just trying to do routine tasks like driving to the supermarket or commuting back home from work because of the amount of traffic. I also know where to "walk trails and experience miles of solitude", but that doesn't mean that the park wasn't experiencing high crowds. Cades Cove sure was packed - in fact there were days where it took 2 to 3 hours to go around that loop. Clingmans Dome, LeConte, the Chimneys and the rest of the more popular places in the park were also busy. The only day where there was hardly any traffic was October 14th when the park experienced a 5 inch rain storm and high wind events. I was in the middle of that when it was happening and it was the only time I saw a reprieve in visitation. Even halloween during the snowstorm was busy, and the Saturday after the storm people were hovering all around the border trails of the park while the main roads were closed because of downed trees, etc. Local businesses, and the "local neighbors" that live and work around the park did well in October - and many had record revenue days, as some talk about in this link.
Social media is also playing a major factor. Up-to-date conditions are now broadcast to millions of people via facebook and twitter, and that's a new phenomenon that is having a far-reaching effect. When you have a 1/3rd of the US population within a days drive, and there are many annoucements about "Fall is going into peak in the mid-elevations" you have people that may have not had visiting the area on thier radar, all the sudden taking a weekend trip because they saw something on social media... I even heard out in Yellowstone it was a record October for them too. The economy, and gas prices are a factor, like Mr Thomas suggested. Also, 2013 is a terrible year for comparison because the main road washed out from January and wasnt operable again until May, there was a shutdown during the height of October, and it was one of the rainiest and wettest summers on record. It's evident when the weather and economic conditions are good, as was the case this year, people come to the park.
your arguments are invalid on multiple levels J Thomas. if you knew a history of the backcountry fee you would know that the campsites were empty to begin with that is the point of contention for locals so there never was a need to have reservations. the Appalachian Trail shelters which represent only a fraction of the backcountry sites get full during at hiking season and the rest of the time the smokies back country is empty with an average of two campers per night for camp site. National Park Service lied about those numbers originally and cited over crowding as the justification for the fee so why should we trust anything they say including their inflated numbers now or back country or front country visitation? If you spent any time here you would know that. trying to discount comments questioning the National Park Service is a common tactic amongst the National Park Service.
A trip to the Smokies is made just about every month to do some hiking and backpacking. The latest backpacking stats are as follows on an October hike across the Smokies backbone via the AT:
10/20/14 CS112 Mollies Ridge, Resv said 2, actual 2
10/21/14 CS109 Derrick Knob, Resv said 8, actual 7
10/22/14 CS106 Mt. Collins, Resv said 12, actual 1
10/23/14 CS104 Pecks Corner, Resv said 7, actual 4
10/24/14 CS102 Cosby Knob, Resv said 11, actual 5
That is 21 no shows over a 5 day period with perfect weather. Reservations said 40 permits were granted, 19 showed, 21 did not. That is a 52.5% no show rate.