Your Fee Dollars at Work

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Great Smoky Mountains National Park uses recreation fee dollars from parking tags, frontcountry camping, and backcountry camping to protect the park and enhance your park experience. The park is using this money to improve visitor safety, increase park ranger presence, and repair, enhance and maintain public park facilities. One hundred percent of the funds generated by park fees stays in the Smokies.

In 2023, the National Park Service launched Park it Forward to provide critical support to protect and enhance the visitor experience at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, now and into the future. Parking tags are required for all visitors exploring the park when parked for more than 15 minutes. When you purchase a parking tag, you directly contribute to protecting the Smokies. These funds have allowed the park to improve roads and facilities, protect wildlife, hire more rangers to better serve visitors, and much more—learn about recreation fee funded projects below.

 

Duration:

1 minute, 6 seconds

Hear from Superintendent Cassius Cash about the benefits of the Park it Forward parking tag program.

 

Improving the Visitor Experience

 

NPS

Increased park ranger presence

With fee dollar revenue, eight roving park rangers were hired to travel across the park providing invaluable information to visitors from where they are, not from behind a desk at a visitor center. Since these rangers were hired in March 2023, they have collectively made more than 200,000 visitor contacts, picked up over 1,700 pounds of trash, and assisted with search and rescue missions, motor vehicle accidents and wildlife response.

Overall, through the Park It Forward Parking Tag Program, the Smokies has hired more than 25 rangers across the park.

 

NPS

Preventative search and rescue (PSAR) team

With funding from fee dollars, Great Smoky Mountains National Park has established a Preventative Search and Rescue (PSAR) team to enhance the safety of park visitors. In 2024, the park responded to 108 search and rescue incidents, not including emergency responses occurring in the frontcountry, underscoring the necessity for a dedicated response team. Comprising of both full-time and seasonal rangers—highly trained medics and EMS professionals—the PSAR team plays a crucial role in reducing the likelihood of such incidents.

A significant portion of the PSAR team's efforts is dedicated to incident prevention. Studies indicate that many rescues stem from visitors being unprepared. To address these issues, PSAR rangers are out in the park, providing essential information about trail conditions and guidance on safe hiking practices. In the event of an incident, our PSAR team is among the first to respond, dedicating countless hours to saving lives.

 

NPS

Hazard tree response

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is using recreation fee funding to make your visit safer! Funded entirely by recreation fee dollars, a new six-member team is working to more quickly identify and mitigate hazard trees throughout the park’s most visited areas. In a park with millions of trees and frequent storms and landscape changes, hazard trees are unavoidable. You may see this team evaluating, tagging, and safely removing hazard trees with a goal to reduce the potential for those trees to injure people or damage buildings.

 

Gail Patton

Improving park roadways

Additional maintenance employees funded by fee dollars, help us better maintain the 384 miles of roads, 146 bridges, and several tunnels in the park. These essential crews help repair road shoulders, patch potholes, and replace damaged signs and fences across the park. Future Park It Forward funds will allow us to continue making further improvements throughout the park.

 

NPS

Cosby Road rehabilitation

In Cosby, recreation fee dollars as well as funding from the Federal Lands Transportation Program are being used to fund the resurfacing of Cosby Road, the installation of a new 25-foot road culvert, and the replacement of sidewalks in the Cosby picnic area. This project is expected to be completed by the end of July 2025. Learn more about this project.

 

Paul Driessche

New bear-proof dumpsters

Thanks to funding from fees, we have replaced 34 bear-proof dumpsters at seven popular campgrounds and picnic areas including: Elkmont Campground, Metcalf Bottoms Picnic Area, Cosby Campground, Cades Cove Campground, Chimneys Picnic Area, Smokemont Campground, and Deep Creek Campground & Picnic Area. These locations were chosen due to their high visitation levels, which can lead to more human-bear interactions. 33 additional dumpsters will be replaced soon.

In the Smokies, our goal is to keep visitors safe while protecting wildlife from becoming habituated (used to) to humans. If bears learn to associate humans with easy meals, they may stop searching for food in their natural environment. This puts both visitors and bears at risk and can sometimes lead to bears being euthanized.

Replacing old bear-proof dumpsters is a significant step in preventing bears from finding human food. By improving waste management, we can reduce the chances of black bears rummaging through trash and keep wildlife wild.

 

Beginning stages of the new Laurel Falls parking area, funded by recreation fee dollars.

NPS

Coming soon

Future Park It Forward funds will allow us to continue making further improvements throughout the park. A glimpse of some upcoming projects:

• Replacement of horse stalls at Tow String.

• Expanded parking at Laurel Falls Trail.

• Rehabilitation of Mingus Mill.

• Rehabilitation of Sugarlands Visitor Center water and wastewater system.

• Rehabilitation of 7 miles of Newfound Gap Road in North Carolina, as well as repaving of 6 parking areas.

Stay tuned for more updates as we work to improve the Smokies.