The U.S. Forest Service has made major progress repairing the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests a year after Hurricane Helene’s devastation. Across the Southeast, forests suffered from flooding, landslides, and wind damage that closed roads, trails, and campsites critical to the region’s outdoor economy. 

Born from the high, cold springs of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and destined for the Gulf of Mexico, the clear waters of the Oconaluftee River have a long journey ahead. The river flows through the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ homeland in Cherokee and joins increasingly voluminous waterways as it travels toward the sea. The Cherokee know this southbound path as the Long Person, yvwi ganvhida — a living being with its head in the mountains and its feet in the sea.

Six new recipients in Western North Carolina have been awarded grants to participate in the MADE X MTNS Partnership’s Building Outdoor Communities Program. 

Newly released economic data measuring the outdoor recreation industry’s impact on the U.S. economy shows that, despite ongoing economic challenges, the industry continues to be a powerful driver in North Carolina. 

New data from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis show that 2021 was a year of growth for the outdoor economy in North Carolina — but that the industry is still working to make up ground it lost during the pandemic. 

More than 130 people from 25 Western North Carolina counties met in Boone last month to talk about how best to build the region’s outdoor economy — and over the next two years, that conversation will continue. Building Outdoor Communities, a program from Made By Mountains, aims to help individual communities foster collaboration and expertise to meet their outdoor economy goals.  

With more than 600 people and 70 speakers from 24 states gathering for a four-day event, the 2022 Outdoor Economy Conference  held April 4-7 in Cherokee is difficult to sum up in a sentence, a paragraph or even a conversation.

Due to the Delta variant’s continued impact on public health, the Outdoor Economy Conference originally scheduled for Oct. 12-15 has been postponed until April 2-7, 2022 — but other opportunities to connect with the outdoor community will be scheduled in the meantime.

Nearly $3 million in newly announced funding will support further development of the outdoor-driven community and economy in Western North Carolina. The project aims to generate 325 jobs and generate $18.1 million of new investment in the region’s outdoor economy.
The three-year project, managed by Mountain BizWorks and the Growing Outdoors Partnership, will rely on three core pillars to accomplish its goals.

While prominently displayed “now hiring” signs and sign-on bonuses attest to the difficulty many employers now face in staffing their operations, outdoor businesses have been largely exempt from the summer’s labor crisis — just as they were from the faltering consumer demand that rattled many industries this time last year.