Step by Step, Friends of the Smokies Improves Park Trails
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK, N.C. (WLOS) — We're lucky to have the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in our backyard enticing locals and visitors alike to experience its many trails. Maintaining those trails requires a little more than a walk in the park. You and the non-profit organization, “Friends of the Smokies" can make sure those trails are around forever.
There are accessible trails throughout the Great Smoky Mountains National park, like Deep Creek outside Bryson City.
“Just really nice to see that it's being preserved and kept up for people to enjoy it like we did,” says Kathyrn Guyer visiting from Durham.
“We just appreciate that organizations are out there doing the heavy lifting day in and day out so we can come in our spare time and enjoy what beautiful nature has been protected for us,” says her husband Ryan Clark.
“Thankfully, through Friends of the Smokies and the Trails Forever program we've been able to come out here and do these kinds of projects,” says park ranger Adam Gibson
It was Friends of the Smokies funding that made it possible to fix steps leading down to Indian Creek Falls.
“It was very slick. Had very high steps and we had a real problem with people falling down taking some tumbles and stumbles,” says Gibson.
To up the standards, crews went to work.
“We ended up building log cribbing steps to about a 6-inch height,” Gibson says.
That created consistent strides for visitors' comfort.
“It makes it a lot easier to get down because otherwise I don't think we would have come down here to see the falls nearly as close,” says Ryan May, visiting from Raleigh.
Trail specialist Tim Warner says a consistent pipeline of funds from Friends of the Smokies allows improvements on legacy trails and expansion to other trails, park-wide...work he says that comes with a sense of purpose.
“A sense of pride knowing we're making this possible...a lot more accessible to a wider variety of people,” Warner says.
With the funding, Warner says the Park could hire half a dozen employees permanently, like Ken Gragg previously on contract.
“After that 4 years I was going to have to go to a different park. But because of Friends of the Smokies and the Trails Forever funding, I was able to get a permanent job here,” he says.
Volunteer opportunities are in place on the Tennessee side of the Park, and continued funding means possible volunteer openings on the North Carolina side too.
Step by step, the Park makes improvements with your help.
“Without that Trails Forever funding a lot of these things wouldn't be possible,” says Warner.
