Book ’Em While You Got ’Em. Why the Federal Government Is Making Camping in the Smokies a Lot More Crowded
The Great Smoky Mountains and other national parks across the country are caught in political crossfire, resulting in less access to their majesty.
There are few things more peaceful than a Smoky Mountain camping getaway. It’s a disconnect from the digital world and reconnecting with the real one. A campfire, the gentle roar of a mountain stream and the breeze blowing through the trees bring a certain kind of restorative peace that is rare in modern society.
And, may I say, if you’ve never been out under a clear sky on a warm summer night in the mountains, you haven’t truly experienced the wonder of the universe as it was meant to be seen? A sky that is so thick with stars you feel like you could reach up and scoop them down the heavens.
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However, that peace – at least in a figurative way – has been broken. A political fight in Washington D.C. that has a lot to do with money, power and petulance and very little to do with the mountains or the people who love them will affect the way people can experience the Smokies. For instance, the GSMNP just announced that several camping and/or picnic areas will remain closed at least through Spring.
Why Are Parts of the Smokies Closed?
Earlier this year, as Elon Musk and his DOGE team took a scythe to the federal government, it was revealed that the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior were part of the indiscriminate culling.
It’s hard to say definitively how many workers have been affected across the country because the numbers seem to be changing and there is an ongoing legal battle. Also, there have been instances where thousands of part-time employees’ hiring freezes have been lifted. Additionally, some employees who had been laid off were subsequently deemed necessary and brought back. So, getting a hard public accounting of exactly what’s happening is difficult.
Previously, we reported 1,000 full-time seasonal NPS workers affected by the hiring freeze. Per USA Today, other positions affected include about 3,400 in the U.S. Forest Service, 800 in the Bureau of Land Management, and 400 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. However, earlier this week, the LA Times and other outlets reported that 1,000 employees have been or will be reinstated due to a court order.
Before that announcement, multiple outlets reported that 12 of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park staffers had been laid off with more layoffs possible. Have those 12 workers been reinstated? Were they part of the 1,000? As of the moment I’m typing this sentence, the reporting is unclear, but this remains a moving target. Things are happening, unhappening and rehappening very quickly.
What is closing?
The park announced this week that six of its 10 campgrounds will not be opening this Spring. To be clear, Cosby Campground is closed for roadwork in the area and Balsam Mountain, Big Creek and Cataloochee campgrounds have been closed since Hurricane Helene. Therefore, they may not have been ready for the season-opening anyway.
However, with Abrams Creek and Look Rock Campgrounds now closed – apparently due to staffing issues – 60 percent of the park’s campgrounds will not open this Spring. People who have booked and paid for camping trips in those campgrounds will have their money refunded.
Now, in fairness, the park’s biggest campgrounds like Cades Cove, Elkmont and Smokemont will still be open. However, with less availability elsewhere, you can expect it will be harder to book the campgrounds. In addition, the picnic areas at Big Creek, Chimneys (my favorite), Collins Creek, Heintooga, Look Rock and Twin Creeks are closed. Anyone who booked and paid for a pavilion at these campgrounds will have their money refunded.
Finally, the start of vehicle-free days in Cades Cove has been pushed back a month from May to June. Whether or not it will restart in June is anyone’s guess.
Will the plan change?
Will these announcements change in the coming days due to the impending arrival of the reinstated employees? Maybe. If staffing issues were the cause of the closures, logically, the alleviation of those issues could allow for the sites to open even if it’s a little later in the spring than usual.
However, it is unclear how long it will take to reinstate the 12 and if more seasonal positions are not counted among the 12 that have yet to be filled. At the point of this writing, there is much we can’t say definitively.
Is Closing a Couple of Campgrounds and Picnic Areas That Big of a Deal?
Yes and no.
In the grand scheme of things, we’ll all go on. After all, I assume there will be bigger national budget fights than keeping the Heintooga picnic area open. However, besides the scenic drives like Cades Cove, picnic areas are the main way people connect with the park. Not everyone is a hiker or experiences the backcountry on foot. But the picnic areas? That’s one of the ways the people enjoy these federal lands that their ancestors set aside.
It’s how they connect with the lands they’ve visited since they were kids and want to pass it down to their kids. So, not having access to those things is a big deal.
Is It All Worth It?
Is it worth limiting access to the wonders of the Smoky Mountains to save the salaries of 12 people? Millions of people come to the park each year, generating 10s of millions in revenue and taxes that make their way to the federal government. I submit to you the GSMNP generates millions more than it costs to operate.
Also, protecting our National Parks is a key part of our civic duty. It is a duty inherited from our forefathers and our responsibility to assume stewardship until we pass them on to the next generation. Everyone is lamenting that the younger generation needs less screen time and more time out in nature. But now we’re pulling the plug on core experiences in the great outdoors? Make it make sense.
In the intro, I wrote about how a camping trip in the Smokies can be a life-changing experience. This Spring would be some kid’s first time camping out in the mountains. Maybe Mom and Dad will be able to schedule something in the few campgrounds that are open but maybe not.
Think about the lost opportunity to learn the wonder of nature, to be up in the mountains, right next to heaven, in a way that can’t be replicated in a parking lot campground in Townsend or Pigeon Forge. We’re taking that away because of a few dollars that probably aren’t even being saved, just moved from one pocket to Elon’s? I don’t get it.
Does Losing 12 People Mean These Areas Have To Close?
I don’t know the specifics of park operations. I don’t know how many GSMNP employees there are. Does 12 represent 10 percent? Maybe. Maybe it’s 5 percent. Perhaps it’s 20. But picnic areas and campgrounds have to be managed. They have to be patrolled. They have to have trash picked up, and bathrooms cleaned and flushed.
It seems natural that if the park loses some of the people who patrol and monitor the collection of trash and the cleaning, there will be some give. After all, the park is massive. Having fewer people to cover the ground is going to have ramifications.
What’s the Big Deal? Shouldn’t Improved Efficiency Be the Goal?
Yeah. I can’t tell you that improved efficiency is a bad thing. But I don’t believe the way that Musk and DOGE are going about it will improve efficiency. I understand the belief that the federal government is bloated and could use some culling, and I respect it.
What I don’t respect is culling via brutality rather than precision. I don’t believe in shooting first and asking questions later. I don’t advocate amputating a leg and then trying to sew it back on when you realize the patient needed it to walk.
Pick your metaphor – a scythe, a flamethrower, a sledgehammer – those generally aren’t the tools of careful, thoughtful artists. I know Musk’s preferred metaphor – a chainsaw – can be used in an exacting manner by a skilled craftsman. But Musk and his DOGE aren’t taking a competent approach. Instead, they swing the chainsaw like Leatherface on a three-day meth binge.
What’s Next?
As evidenced by the recent reversal, I don’t think anyone knows. I’d love to offer a hopeful version of the future where the people in power see the error of their ways and redirect course into something a little more exacting than blowing up the federal government and waiting to see what happens next. But we’re not there yet.
I hope people see that these park’s legacies are bigger than political bickering in Washington, bigger than a national ideological divide. I hope they see these parks as our collective birthright, something to be cherished and protected and handed down to generations to come so they can sit in the quiet of the mountains and gaze up at the skies above and ponder the wonder and infinity of God’s creations in the heavens and on Earth.
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If there was not so much wasteful spending maybe things would not have been cut!
This powerful article cuts to the core of what needs to be saved for future generations. John, thank you for sharing this well written piece on our treasured National Parks.