A team of Great Smoky Mountains National Park employees was recently awarded the 2023 Excellence in Education Award at a National Park Service awards ceremony in Washington D.C. Many of the agency’s top awards were presented at the 2023 National Service Awards ceremony. 

A new National Park Service report shows that 13,297,647 visitors to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2023 spent $2.2 billion in communities near the park. That spending supported 33,748 jobs in the local area and had a cumulative benefit to the local economy of $3.4 billion.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is home to an estimated 1,900 black bears — about two per square mile — with more than 14,500 of these iconic mammals roaming the four-state mountain region.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Rangers responded to a report of a motorcycle collision along Newfound Gap Road near Park Headquarters at approximately 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 30.

Visitation at many state forests in North Carolina is two and three times greater than what is typical for this time of year, which is stretching the resources of the sites and making it harder for people to practice proper social distancing. Visitors are asked to strictly follow social distancing guidelines to help keep public lands safe, available and open to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A trending hashtag … err … #trashtag has been gaining worldwide attention for encouraging people to photograph pictures of the trash they pick up, so it should be no surprise that the person who came up with the idea is from rural Haywood County in rugged, scenic Western North Carolina.