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.
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Comments
I was one of those people. It was crowded, but absolutely beautiful. And two miles down almost any path got you near total solitude.
The NPS is fudging numbers again. Last weekend, a beautiful Fall backpacking weekend, the majority of backcountry campsites were totally empty, according to the reservation website. I checked most all of the sites and stayed in one and walked by several more. The reason the NPS is lying is to offset the fact that in the first year of their backcountry fee they managed to drop visitation to the backcountry by %30. Understand these false figures are brought to you by the same Smokies administration that is responsible for allowing Blackberry Farms to cut trees and maintain private trails because of their association with a prominent Senator who started the resort. It is also the same administration that illegally rerouted a trail to give land to a former Tn Governor whose house abuts it. This is also the same Smokies administration who, when asked what the public sentiment was regarding the fee in the form of public comments, was caught red handed fudging numbers in their favor by attempting to discount an online movement that had over 500 signatures. Superintendent Dale Ditmanson said, "online petitions do not count as a comment" despite the fact they were included in the comments when someone did a FOIA. 8 million cars may drive through the Smokies per year. I promise there are no 8 or 9 million "visitors". It is another way they cry for more money. Numbers fudgers.
I have often wondered how the NPS could be so precise in terms of total number of visitors in the Smokies. Presumably the backcountry camping numbers are precise and based on those paying the onerous fee, but even here one has to wonder whether the numbers are individual campers, camper nights, or something else. As for the stated number of 1,261,104 overall October visitors, I must cry foul.
I grew up on the edge of the Park in Bryson City, and I have never seen any counting mechanism in place which can offer anything approaching the precision the NPS gives in this press release. There are no admission fees for the Park proper, no check-in area or gates on Highway 441 (the main road through the Park), and simply no way such precision can meet the mathematical smell test. Maybe someone can explain the process involved in reaching the numbers, but I am convinced there's no way such precison is possible.
Accordingly, when the NPS gives such specific numbers it raises questions about the overall accuracy of anything they offer.
Jim Casada
Note: Counting procedures changed in 2012 so any comparison to a year other than 2012 and 2013 would be invalid. That is, unless you use the IPCC methodology and just make up the prior numbers.
January 1, 2012
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
PUBLIC USE COUNTING AND REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS
Following are detailed instructions for collecting and reporting data to be entered on Form 10-157, Revised, Monthly Public Use Report by Great Smoky Mountains National Park. These instructions are effective the date of issuance and will continue in effect unless changed by amendment or by memorandum from the Socio-
Economic Studies Division to the superintendent approving a requested change.
Each item below describes the procedures to be followed in collecting public use data and summarizing the various elements of those data for entry on the corresponding line on the 10-157, Monthly Public Use Report. Recreation Visitors
1. An inductive loop traffic counter (Station 401 Lane 2) is located across the southbound lane of Newfound Gap Road at the Gatlinburg entrance. The traffic count is reduced by the number of buses and Non-reportable vehicles (19 per day). The reduced traffic count is multiplied by the persons-pervehicle(PPV) multiplier in Table 1.
2. The number of bus passengers. This is the number of buses times the person per bus multiplier of 45.
3. An inductive loop traffic counter (Station 404 Lane 2) is located across the southbound lane of Tennessee 73 inside the park boundary at the Townsend entrance. The traffic count is reduced by the number of Non-reportable vehicles (10 per day). The reduced traffic count is multiplied by the PPV multiplier in Table 1.
4. Inductive loops traffic counters (Station 403 Lanes 3 and 4) are located across the northbound lanes of Newfound Gap Road south of the entrance to Oconaluftee Visitor Center at the Oconaluftee entrance. The traffic count is reduced by the number of Non-reportable vehicles (17 per day). The reduced traffic count is multiplied by the PPV multiplier in Table 1.
5. An inductive loop traffic counter is located at the Abrams Creek entrance. The traffic count is multiplied by the PPV multiplier in Table 1.
6. The traffic at Balsam Mountain spur road is estimated in Table 2. The traffic count is multiplied by the PPV multiplier in Table 1.
7. An inductive loop (FOTSC) traffic counter is located across the northbound entrance lane ofHeintooga-Round Bottom. The traffic count is multiplied by the PPV multiplier in Table 1.
Note: Table 1 shows a multiplier of 2.8 June- September and 2.5 the remainder of the year.
Additional park comments on counting can be found here:
https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/SSRSReports/Park%20Specific%20Reports/Monthly...
EC, can't seem to find the page with your "note" on it. Can you point us to it? (I realize the remark about IPCC was your own...)
Table 1 was in the same doc as the 7 point count description I posted. The table was simply two lines and two columns showing the month ranges and multipliers.
Also, I missed a line that says that total count is reduced by 12% to eliminate duplicate reporting.
Click "Visitor Use Counting Procedures " (one up from bottom) for full PDF.
https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/Reports/Park
Kurt, I tried to access that website but got a message that it was "unavailable". Much like when I go to the backcountry reservation website. It is often "unavailable".
Very good news for GSMNP.
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.
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.
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.
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.
No shows happen all the time in the front country, too. I am currently in a SC state park on the beach where campsites are nearly impossible to get on weekends, even during winter. And yet, a 1/3 of the sites are empty due to no shows (they are in the system as reserved). These sites are $30/night and people don't bother to cancel. It is pretty easy to see why people wouldn't bother to cancel for $4/night.
When I was in the smokies last month I got a site for a week because some else canceled. But the campground, booked full for the weekend, had dozens of open sites due to no shows. People can now book months in advance. Then they forget or plans change.
You can only book smokies back country sites 30 days in advance. Unless you are a guide service that can log into the system and book a site full then change it to keep non guided taxpaying peons away from their private gains from public lands.
Jim Casada made this bogus claim about me in his forum. He claims I said the following on this page:
Once again, I made no such claim about backcountry campsites, and did not mention anything about backcountry site use on this thread. Can you point to where I said any such thing on this page, jim? So quit twisting my words!! The reality was the park was busy, the roads were crowded, and businesses in Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge-Townsend, etc were booming in October. Those are facts and reality. I was inside the park boundary 25 of 31 days, jimbo. Were you? Were you in the park AT ALL? Having a few people make claims that they didn't encounter anyone along trails like rabbit branch, or miri ridge, or a few other trails on the west side, does not mean the park wasn't crowded in other areas. Those trails are low hanging fruit, and well off most people's radar and are barely trekked even during the busiest times .. ENJOY the fact that areas like that still exist in GSMNP, if you can somehow attempt to pull yourself out of grinch mode ..
Regardless, I never made any comment about backcountry use in this entire thread. I don't whine about the backcountry 24/7, and am not in the business to spread misinformation and propaganda to "get donations" so I can use those funds to pay lawyers to file lawsuit after lawsuit to sue the park. That's your world. Point is October was very busy. I live next to the park, and I saw it with my own eyes. I don't need heresay from someone sitting on a computer way out in knoxville or even further out in Kentucky that are only in the park a few times a month. June and July were also very busy this year and the stats do show that. Regardless, if you dont trust the statistics to claim the park doesn't have ANY traffic is a joke. The park is quite busy and anyone that is involved saw it. Learn to read and quote me in context, please! Because it would make the misinformation you try to constantly spread about me more pallatable…I definitely did not trek every trail in the park checking on backcountry accommodations, nor do I care. That is your fight, and seems to consume a good portion of your life. Even though I do encounter backcountry campers throughout the year, i'm not keeping data, nor do I care to do so. So don't pull me into your battles with the NPS, when all I stated that the park was crowded in October.