Camping fee increase proposed for Parkway

The Blue Ridge Parkway is proposing a significant increase to camping fees, with public comments accepted through Friday, March 15. 

2023 A Look Back: Meter Maid Award

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park has earned this one for its decision to begin charging for parking, effective March 1 this year. 

Fee increase for Macon County solid waste

After some pushback from Commissioner John Shearl, Macon County has approved three changes to the solid waste fee structure for fiscal year 2023-24. 

Park it Forward: Congress won’t pay for Smokies maintenance backlog — you will

After years of inaction by Congress led to a massive $262 million deferred maintenance backlog in America’s most-visited national park, it will now be up to visitors to pony up their own money to support the park’s most basic staffing and maintenance needs.

Pay to play: Smokies parking tags now on sale

Starting March 1, Great Smoky Mountains National Park visitors will have to pay to park. As the date approaches and annual parking tags go on sale, park management is working to iron out the details and communicate them to the public.

WCU Trustees approve tuition, fee increases

“Extraordinary” inflation and the need to match state salary increases will prompt increases to the cost of attendance at Western Carolina University next year, according to the 2023-2024 schedule of tuition and fees the Board of Trustees adopted at their Dec. 2 meeting. 

Booming Times, Busted Budgets: Growing visitation strains resources in and around the GSMNP

Christine Cole Proctor was home alone with her big sister at the family cabin on Forney Creek when she heard an unfamiliar rumble climbing the isolated mountain road. It was a car — the first they’d ever seen scale the rugged route. 

Smokies adopts parking fee

Starting March 1, visiting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will no longer be completely free — a first for park history.

Counting cars: Smokies updates decades-old visitation estimator

Anybody who’s been to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the last few years has seen it — overflowing parking lots, mobbed trails and narrow mountain roads lined with cars. They’re visual symptoms of a national park bursting at the seams with unprecedented levels of visitation,  hitting a highwater mark in 2021 at 14.1 million visits.

N.C. House opposes Smokies parking fee

The N.C. House of Representatives last week condemned the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s controversial proposal to enact a parking fee with passage of a resolution  that calls on Congress to block the plan.

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