Displaying items by tag: smokies funding

The crest of the Great Smoky Mountains is seen from the Foothills Parkway looking east. Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press

Local and state partners will fund $61,703.18 each day; no indication of what happens next during height of tourist season

Jim Matheny is Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park communications director.

GATLINBURG — The nonprofit Friends of the Smokies will help pay to fully reopen Great Smoky Mountains National Park for one week during the ongoing federal government shutdown. The park will be fully open and operational from Saturday, Oct. 4, through Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. 

Closures have been in effect since the start of the shutdown Oct. 1 for Cades Cove Loop Road, visitor centers at Sugarlands and Cades Cove, and picnic areas at Chimneys and Cades Cove. All will reopen Saturday.

Friends of the Smokies joins the State of Tennessee, Sevier County, Blount County, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and the cities of Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Sevierville to fund the resumption of full operations by park staff. 

Fees will support increased ranger presence, improved visitor experience and more

This article was provided by Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

GATLINBURG — In the first year since Great Smoky Mountains National Park launched the Park it Forward program, the park generated over $10 million in recreation fee revenue, which includes parking tag sales and camping fees. The park is using this money to improve visitor safety and increase park ranger presence, as well as repair, enhance and maintain public park facilities. The park’s second year of the parking tag program began this month.  

“Our team at Great Smoky Mountains National Park is grateful for the support of our partners, our neighbors and the millions of visitors who are helping us take care of one of the country’s most visited national parks,” said Superintendent Cassius Cash. “We’re already using this funding to increase our search and rescue program, add parking spaces at Laurel Falls trailhead and we are in the process of hiring more than 25 new park rangers."