From George Masa’s 1915 arrival in Asheville until his death in 1933, the trailblazing Japanese photographer explored the Smoky Mountains, mapping trails and capturing the region’s grandeur and beauty in photographs that helped make the case for the creation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But Masa’s friends — and the researchers who followed — have long wondered: where did Masa’s love of the mountains originate?

Amid the ongoing federal government shutdown, the nonprofit Friends of the Smokies will continue to provide funding to ensure Great Smoky Mountains National Park remains open with basic visitor services and limited staffing from Nov. 3, through Jan. 4, 2026. 

Amid the ongoing federal government shutdown, the nonprofit Friends of the Smokies will continue to provide funding to ensure Great Smoky Mountains National Park remains open with basic visitor services and limited staffing from Nov. 3, 2025, through Jan. 4, 2026. The latest agreement allows the popular Cades Cove Loop Road to remain open to the public along with all visitor centers and picnic areas that are normally open this time of year.

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.

Nearly one month into the federal government shutdown, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park remains open to the public, and the National Forest Service’s logging and disaster response capabilities remain active. 

When the federal government shut down at midnight Oct. 1, there were a lot of questions, especially for Western North Carolina, where business owners and residents are already on the heels of a year of economic uncertainty.

The nonprofit Friends of the Smokies will help pay to fully reopen Great Smoky Mountains National Park for one week during the ongoing federal government shutdown. The park will be fully open and operational from Saturday, Oct. 4, through Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. 

When the federal government shut down at midnight Oct. 1, there were a lot of questions, especially for Western North Carolina, where business owners and residents are already on the heels of a year of economic uncertainty.

The Colquitt Foundation has given $750,000 to the nonprofit Friends of the Smokies to save historic structures and help the national park’s Cataloochee Valley recover from damage caused by Hurricane Helene.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the crown jewel of the Southern Appalachians, an ancient landscape teeming with life — including what naturalist and explorer William Bartram in 1791 called “insects of infinite variety,” many of them “admirably beautiful.” Some 200 years later, naturalist E. O. Wilson would describe them as the “little things that run the world.” 

For the first time in nearly three years, the trail to Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s tallest waterfall is fully open — and following an intensive rehabilitation of its entire four-mile length, Ramsey Cascades Trail is in better shape than it’s been in decades.