Great Smokey Mountains!

Great Smokey Mountains National Park is one of our ten most endangered national parks according to the NPCA. The threats include air pollution (obstructing views and slowly poisoning our lungs), non-native species (multiplying rapidly and eating everything available), and lack of funds for proper management (tax dollars misallocated elsewhere). We understandably want to experience our parks, and because the population continues to grow, the most popular parks suffer the most from budget cuts. Over-crowding is one of the big threats at Great Smokey Mountains.

Better funding could allow the parks to create facilities and strategies for dealing with large numbers of people. Several popular national parks, including Smokey Mountains, have limited vehicle access on scenic roads to only propane powered shuttle busses. Staff need funds to buy and maintain shuttles so more tourists can see the sites with less traffic hassle and less auto exhaust. Utah’s Zion National Park closes a scenic drive at the busiest times of the year in order to prevent traffic jams of up to 5000 cars a day trying to make use of 450 parking spaces. Says journalist John Krist, “Visitors who once would have spent most of their time at Zion driving back and forth looking for a parking spot, now find they can visit several park features in a single day by riding the shuttle.”

In May 2005, I rode that propane-powered shuttle and found it a fabulous way to get to the sites in the park. Just hop on the bus near the campground and hop off at any of the many stops along the roads. Even though it was early in the season, the park was crowded. I had gotten the very last campsite at the Zion Campground. If all of us had to use our own vehicles to get around, it would have made for a maddening experience, slowing traffic to a crawl.

Luckily for this traveler, the most popular time to visit the Smokies is in the summer. In April, there were plenty of other folks enjoying the visitor centers, but it was not overcrowded to the point of creating traffic jams or filled campgrounds. It’s nice to be able, as I am, to travel in the off-season. It was still too chilly for most people who tent camp, and the kids were still in school.

Approaching the park entrance on the edge of Gatlinburg, I had stopped at a group of small gift shops advertising local crafts. One of the shopkeepers told me how the crafters had joined together and moved out of the town centre. I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant when he said they couldn’t stand it down there since so many ugly structures had been put up. Once I got there, it didn’t take long to figure out. Following State 321 to the Sugarlands Visitor Center, I thought I had made a wrong turn or perhaps I had lost my mind, as I drove through traffic inching along in the incredibly narrow downtown streets lined with the Hard Rock Café, Starbucks, and other mass market tourist “essentials.” The Disneyesque ambiance was a crowded, incredibly ugly hell. The signs directing me to the park were still in evidence if I kept a sharp eye out, so I bravely drove on.

In an almost surreal trick, the city abruptly ended and a long wooded road appeared before me leading to the visitor center. That night I stayed at the Elkmont Campground at a peaceful spot near the Little River. Next day, I did a low speed, gawking drive at Cades Cove, a one-way loop through scenic and historic areas. At the busiest time of year, a shuttle is the only transportation around the loop. I could see how it would be the perfect way to take this drive on a crowded day.

Without such restrictions, I drove slowly along the winding Little River and Laurel Creek Roads, stopping at pullouts on a whim. On the 11-mile long Cades Cove Loop, I stopped to check out all of the buildings. There are three old churches, a gristmill, and numerous houses and barns to explore. I am betting that none of the builders of these old structures could have conceived that their farms would be visited by curious tourists one day. The visitor center in the middle of the loop drive provided rest rooms, gift shop and informed rangers to answer my questions.

Despite overcrowding, it seemed to me that the park service is doing a wonderful job of restoring and preserving the wild areas of the park. Reading the exhibit material and talking to rangers, I learned that for the last 70 years, the acreage within the park has been left undeveloped except for a few park buildings. Authorized in 1926, the park was created from privately owned lands in a group effort. Citizens, schools and the states of North Carolina and Tennessee raised the money. They tore down or moved all the buildings that the early white settlers built, and are encouraging the native vegetation to return. A photo exhibit showed the big messes logging created in the early 1900s, and how those scars have begun to heal. They want to restore and preserve this once wild area for those ubiquitous “generations to come.”

The park service is having less success getting rid of invasive foreign animal and insect species. The biggest animals causing trouble in the park are wild hogs. Big guys, like the biggest prize hog at the state fair! I was glad I never ran into any. Imported to the area in 1912, they escaped to the wild. They root around in soil, damaging plants, cemeteries, and historic landscapes, as well as eating a species of salamander that is found only in the Smokies. Two species of insects called “Adelgids” have been destroying Fraser firs and old-growth hemlocks. In the last 30 years, they have killed most of the Fraser firs in the park! Then of course there are human poachers who illegally dig ginseng or kill bears for their gall bladders (used as an aphrodisiac in Asian medicine).

I bought several excellent, inexpensive booklets detailing the plant life, historic sites, geology and other park-related topics. At first I was thinking the booklets ought to be free, because I’m just used to lots of free information. Thinking about it though, it's great to pay fifty cents or a dollar for info I really want. So often people just take anything free and throw it away later.

In the Smokies, I did only a few short hikes, as I didn’t want to leave The Dude alone too much. Did I mention that dogs aren’t allowed on trails in the national parks? If only people were good at controlling their dogs, but that’s a pipe dream. The campgrounds and hiking trails I explored didn't have much trash, but there was always some. I picked up about a bag at each campground, either in the surrounding vegetation or along the roads. Litter gathering is a never-ending occupation.

As I dumped my day’s pickings in a trash can at a visitor center, I found this sign to be more than a little curious. Check out the attached photo of the sign.

I don't understand the quotation marks around the first two words. If it was around the first four words, I would assume they meant it facetiously or to mean “so-called.” That is the common way to use quotation marks, except in the prescribed way where what is contained within them is a word for word repetition “of a passage attributed to another.” That’s the definition given by my Webster’s II published in 1984. What was the sign maker thinking here? Beats me. Sorry for the digression into punctuation, but I used to be an English teacher and can’t shake punctuation judgment.

Sadly, I was unable to ask anyone the reason the sign was there. The visitor center was closed when I saw the sign, and I never did remember to ask elsewhere. Was there some protest at the park or some civilian group that needed a defined space to operate, and that is why the park service put it up? Had treehuggers been wandering willy-nilly around the park handing out information on endangered species or mountain top mining? I suppose activists do come to the park, and having a designated area is better than allowing groups or even individuals to set up shop anywhere they like. I didn’t see another sign like it on my travels (which is not to say that other parks do not have such signs somewhere).

Most of the park is dedicated to non-motorized access, and includes a good chunk of the Appalachian Trail. The trail more or less cuts the park in two from east to west. It must be a stunningly beautiful hike, especially when a rare relatively clear day reveals the blue vistas of the Smokies. I hope to hike some part of that trail someday when I can go with human companions, leaving The Dude at home with family. It’s wonderful to have areas with no roads. We all like roads, but we don’t realize the damage our roads can do to wild areas, just as we don’t realize touching a rock formation in a cave does damage.

Some of the roads that do allow vehicles to travel into the park are closed in the winter. Some were still closed when I was there in April. The longest road through the park is the Newfound Gap Road that cuts the park in half going north to south. To tell me which of the breathtaking mountains I was currently viewing, I made use of a booklet describing stops along the way of the 29-mile drive. I had lunch at the Chimney Tops Picnic Area. The water-smoothed boulders along the West Prong of the Little Pigeon River made a delightful spot to enjoy a meal. Sadly, I picked up half a bag of litter just in the small area I chose for my picnic. Following the scenic road to the Smokemont Campground, I spent the night near the southern end of the main road. There, I picked up a full bag of litter, between the candy wrappers and butts at my site and the snack trash I found while enjoying a nature trail.

After morning trash picking, I headed off for a day of touristing. Not far from the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, the park has a working water-powered gristmill. At Mingus Mill, I saw corn being ground as an historian explained how the place operated in the 1800s. I took a lot of pictures of the water as it flowed from one part of the old machinery to the next, creating constantly changing patterns as it flows over and around obstacles. The sluice that brought the water from a stream to the machinery was covered in several varieties of moss and algae. The ranger told me the sluice would be replaced soon. I was surprised to learn that the wooden structure lasted only about 20 to 30 years. Damp and plant life ate away at it more quickly than I would have thought.

Just down the road, I took a self-guided tour of the Mountain Farm Museum. The museum is a collection of buildings that were brought to the site from various farms in the area. Though they never all existed together as a single farm in their day, each building represents an aspect of farming life. Together they simulate a typical well-run farm from the early 1900s. I try to imagine what it would have been like to live in such homes and work with the equipment they sometimes made themselves.

Aiding my imagination is the personal experience of living in northern Minnesota in a cabin I helped build. I know how difficult a life can be with no running water, no electric power and no phone. We had a gasoline-powered generator to run the power tools. Once we even took down trees and had them cut into lumber on site with a portable mill. I have cooked daily meals over open fires, used a wood heating stove and a wood cook stove, and considered it a major move forward to get an LP gas stove. Building and living in the woods was a lot of work, sometimes worth it and sometimes not. I have great admiration for the people who used hand tools to cut down trees, peel bark, create log walls or make lumber. I had the advantage of the generator and of going back to “civilization” to visit friends who had showers or to eat at restaurants for a break from cooking over an open fire.

Even though I often feel like my modern day work is never done, I have a lot more comforts to get me through the day than the pioneers ever did. Now I have a house with modern amenities. I’m thankful for the ease they provide me, and marvel at how our ancestors managed without them. And I bet they didn’t whine as much as I do!

At Deep Creek Campground on the southern edge of the park, I spent my last night in the Smokies. I had some trouble finding it because my map didn’t have enough detail and I couldn’t find any signage pointing the way. In Bryson City, some young men working at the grocery store knew the campground I was talking about and gave me directions that took me right to it.

Being out of the way of the museums and visitor centers, the campground was almost empty. The Dude and I had a nice wooded corner of the grounds to ourselves. There wasn’t much litter at the campground, but walking along a back road, I filled a bag with drink cans and snack wrappings. The Dude helped me by finding burger bags hidden under leaves. I will never get used to people who drive out to enjoy the woods with their McMeals, leaving the bags and wrappers behind.

The campground caretaker couple had a cute little dog that courageously barked at The Dude, twice his size. They asked how I like camping at national parks with a dog. They too found it limiting not to be able to use the hiking trails with their dog. They had found that it was better at the national and state forests where dogs on leash are allowed. It’s hard to accept these trade offs for having a canine travel companion. I suppose if roadless areas are sometimes good, then dogless areas are sometimes good.

Not really.