When Steve Woody and Barney Coulter got a mysterious call from Smokies Superintendent Randall Pope in the early 1990s asking to see them in his office, they dutifully, albeit curiously, complied.

Neither were used to taking orders — Coulter as the former chancellor of Western Carolina University nor Woody as the manager of an Asheville-based defense contractor. But they went along out of affinity and respect for the park, and as a good excuse to make the scenic sojourn from their homes in Western North Carolina to park headquarters on the other side of the Smokies.

When they arrived, they assembled around a table with others who had apparently received similar calls. Among them was Judge Gary Wade of Tennessee, who recently hiked to Mount Cammerer only to find the once-glorious Civilian Conservation Corps fire tower crowning the peak on the verge of collapse.

An upset Wade had come to Pope and demanded he fix it, only to learn the park was hamstrung due to a lack of funding. The upshot: the Smokies needed a Friends group.

Hundreds of Friends groups exist today — not just for parks but any special place, be it a historic lighthouse, library, museum or city park. But the concept of dispatching supporters to raise money for an entity supposedly funded by tax dollars was new at the time.

“You drive though and it looks good. What could it possibly need?” Coulter asked.

But in fact, trails were eroding, historic cabins rotting, visitor brochures outdated, ranger programs lacking, campsites growing shabby, environmental threats mounting and the list goes on. With a bare bones budget, the park would diminish in quality over time unless something was done.

“It would not be the great place to visit that it is,” Coulter said. “We could not afford to let the park suffer.”

As they hashed out the idea, Coulter was filled with excitement, yet overwhelmed.

“It sounded like a monumental idea, larger than life. The needs were so great and we thought ‘How do we do this?’” Coulter said.

Pope wanted to lock in commitment on the spot and made a bold pitch to those in the room.

“He said ‘We need some money to get this thing started. Why don’t you each write a check for $1,000,’” Woody recalled. And so they did.

Since that day, Friends of the Smokies has raised $26.3 million for the national park. It is considered one of the most successful Friends organizations in the nation. Their strategy: raise friends, and funds will follow. But it took time to build the critical mass they enjoy today.

“We were pretty much lone rangers out there for a while,” Coulter said. “First we had to develop the story we wanted to tell — why the park is important to all of us, why it is important to the arts and the economy and to nature, why it is important to our collective history.”

In a few short years, the Friends caught on, growing to 4,500 members. Those who depend on the park for tourism, claim it as their heritage or simply relish wilderness all found a reason to support the organization.

“The Friends serve a tremendous purpose in underwriting the goals and aspirations of the park,” said Ken Wilson, a former board member of Friends of the Smokies.

As a newspaper publisher in Waynesville for 20 years, Wilson witnessed the national park’s huge but sometimes subtle footprint. Wilson believes the park defines the community’s collective consciousness.

“I think people who live here, move here and call this place home have a connection with nature in a way that those who live in other parts of the state do not,” said Wilson, who is also a nature photographer. “I think they are here because of that. They are here because that means something to them.”

The Smokies has a disadvantage compared to other major parks. It doesn’t charge an entrance fee, upholding a promise made by park founders when raising money and carving out land for its creation more than 75 years ago. Free entry is surely a Godsend for families or budget backpackers. But the Smokies has less money to work with as a result.

“This park has a bigger hill to climb than the other major national parks,” said Jim Hart, the executive director of Friends of the Smokies.

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges facing the Friends is what to fund every year. Brook trout restoration or elk reintroduction? A crumbling fire tower or new roof for Mingus Mill? School fieldtrips or guided hikes for the public?

Park rangers put their heads together once a year to come up with a wish list that’s presented to the Friends — both of imminent needs and long-range wants. Friends takes the list to heart, but sometimes inserts projects of their own if near and dear to a particular donor.

For example, Toyota donated $1 million over five years to spark students’ interest in science and environmental fields, using the Smokies as a backdrop.

“Parks provide a great place to teach children those building blocks of science,” said George Ivey, a grant writer with Friends of the Smokies. It wasn’t on the park’s list, but was gladly accepted.

And the Aslan Foundation donated $2 million for Trails Forever, an endowment that would permanently fund a third trail crew for the park.

“There was only one trail crew on each side of the park for 800 miles of trails,” Hart said. Crews couldn’t keep up, and the quality of the park’s trails were backsliding.

The National Park Service often gets mired in its own bureaucracy. It takes years for a funding request to lumber its way through the federal budget process. The park can’t react fast when hemlocks come under attack or a windstorm blows shingles off a cabin.

“They have a long and complicated budget process. But we can give money to the park with a quick turnaround,” said Woody, who serves as vice president of the board.

Woody’s role with the Friends is ironic in a way. His grandfather was the last person still living in the park on the North Carolina side, remaining in Cataloochee until 1942 when old age, the war and isolation finally drove him out.

While Woody’s grandfather never forgave the park for taking his farm and homeplace, Woody believes it was the best thing that could have happened to the region and sees the greater good served by his ancestors’ sacrifice.

“It’s an island of peace and serenity where people can go and get away from the frantic lifestyle we’ve developed,” Woody said of the Smokies.

With massive logging operations running full tilt in the Smokies in the 1920s, the sanctity of what once seemed like a vast and untouchable forest was being rapidly reduced to a desert of stumps.

While most locals welcomed the money brought in by timber barons, the famed writer Horace Kephart saw the crash waiting on the other side of the short-lived boom, the day when the trees would be gone and the timber companies would move out, leaving the locals not only without jobs once more, but without the forests their subsistence depended on.

Kephart moved to the region in the early 1900s and immersed himself in the culture of backwoods mountaineers, who he later immortalized in his famed Our Southern Highlanders. It was natural that Kephart recoiled to see his old stomping grounds of Hazel Creek in Swain County ripped to shreds and the landscape denuded.

“He was heartbroken about it. He thought it was a rape. It was going on right where he had lived,” said George Ellison, a leading Kephart scholar in Bryson City.

The contempt came out in Kephart’s writing.

“He wrote that their machinery frightened him, it seemed almost animate and alive as it crawled up the mountain destroying everything in its way with grease and smoke and fire,” said Gary Carden, a writer and historian well versed on Kephart. “He said ‘We have to stop it or it is all going to be gone. People I am living with don’t realize that this country is limited and they are using it up and nobody is stopping them.’ So he took on the job of making the world aware of what was happening in Appalachia.”

The idea for a national park had been percolating quietly for more than a decade, but now Kephart seized on it.

“Every moment of his waking life from the mid-1920s to his death (in 1931) was devoted to that cause,” Ellison said. “He had a public persona and he used that to save what he was devoted to.”

Kephart propelled the idea of a national park like no one else could have. He cranked out magazine articles and newspaper columns across the nation. He penned personal letters to politicians and philanthropists. He joined the national park committee and wrote the text of brochures to promote the idea locally.

His writing was eloquent and his pitch was heartfelt, witnessed in this passage from a column that appeared in the Asheville Times.

“When I first came into the Smokies the whole region was one of superb primeval forest. My sylvan studio spread over mountain after mountain, seemingly without end, and it was always clean and fragrant, always vital, growing new shapes of beauty from day to day. The vast trees met overhead like cathedral roofs. I am not a very religious man, but often when standing alone before my Maker in this house not made with hands I bowed my head with reverence and thanked God for His gift of the greatest forest to one who loved it,” Kephart wrote. “Not long ago, I went to that same place again. It was wrecked, ruined, desecrated, turned into a thousand rubbish heaps, utterly vile and mean.”

Kephart likely would have preferred the job of writing behind the scenes, but he was pressed into service to go on the stump as well. Kelly Bennett, whose drug store in Bryson City served as makeshift headquarters for the pro-park movement, bought Kephart a proper suit to wear on a trip to Washington, D.C.

A Kephart critic on other fronts, outdoor writer and Bryson City native Jim Casada finds redemption in Kephart’s role as a “progenitor of the park.”

“His writings carried the concept to the nation. He was doing that in a sense even before the idea of the park’s creation was being bandied about,” Casada said.

Kephart unknowingly laid the groundwork for the park’s creation with Our Southern Highlanders. The book romanticized the region and captured the country’s imagination with a primitive “world apart” within the borders of their own continent.

The national park wouldn’t just preserve the wilderness, but the lifestyle borne from it.

Shaping a strategy

Kephart motivated the nation under the banner of environmental preservation, but his pitch to locals took a different tack: economic prosperity.

“There is a tourist industry coming. Help us save this and you will be the Gateway of the Smokies,” was Kephart’s pitch, says Carden. “Everybody thought they would be the Gateway to the Smokies.”

Carden doesn’t think the tourist industry blossomed as people were promised, at least not in Bryson City, and some held that against Kephart.

It’s impossible to know whether the Smokies would be here today if not for Kephart. Ellison thinks so, but it would have been far more difficult without the famed author as a spokesman.

There are hints that Kephart grew weary of the fight. In a letter to his son before he died, he described the undertaking as “beset with discouragements of all sorts.” The park’s creation was a certainty by then, and Kephart declared victory in the letter. He added that he would “get out” when the work was done.

Exactly what he meant is a mystery to this day, but Ellison believes Kephart wanted to return to a reclusive life filled with camping and woodcraft.

“It must have been exhausting to him to get involved in a project of that sort,” Ellison said.

Kephart had a secret weapon that kept him going, a friend by the name of George Masa, a nature photographer. Together, they fought for the Smokies: Masa through his stunning photos and Kephart through his writing. They went on long camping adventures through the mountains, mapping peaks and valleys as they went.

“Having somebody to work with, it gave him focus,” Ellison said.

Kephart died in 1931 in an automobile accident outside Bryson City. Kephart hired a taxi driver to take him and a visiting novelist, author of Bloody Ground Fiswoode Tarlton, to the home of a moonshiner. The driver, who likely partook in the goods himself, wrecked the car coming home, killing both Kephart and Tarlton.

A peak in the Smokies was named after Kephart, as was a creek at its base called Kephart Prong.

“He died knowing the park would be a reality,” Ellison said.

While the debate over Kephart’s depiction of the mountaineers will never be settled, he’s been forgiven for his role in creating the park.

“Very gradually, what you do have among a certain number of people in Bryson City is a grudging acknowledgement that Horace had done a good thing, that the creation of the park was a good thing, that it was trading a minor tragedy for a greater good,” Carden said. “They lost their land, but Kephart created a park that was there for all posterity. It’s hard to say when it happened to you, but finally a lot would say he was right. He did a good thing.”

“When I first came into the Smokies the whole region was one of superb primeval forest. My sylvan studio spread over mountain after mountain, seemingly without end, and it was always clean and fragrant, always vital, growing new shapes of beauty from day to day. The vast trees met overhead like cathedral roofs. I am not a very religious man, but often when standing alone before my Maker in this house not made with hands I bowed my head with reverence and thanked God for His gift of the greatest forest to one who loved it. Not long ago, I went to that same place again. It was wrecked, ruined, desecrated, turned into a thousand rubbish heaps, utterly vile and mean.”

— Horace Kephart

As people throughout the mountains and around the country mark the celebration of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s 75th anniversary, Horace Kephart’s role in this park’s creation is once again being thrust into the limelight. While his depiction of “southern highlanders” in his famous book may still be open for debate, two things about Kephart are certain: he was, as the passage above shows, a superb writer; two, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park might not exist had it not been for his advocacy.

Kephart was an outlander, a man who came to the Smokies in his middle age and found people and a place that would consume him for the rest of his life. He cherished his time in the Smokies, and his skills as a chronicler of the ways of the rural mountaineer have earned him a lasting place in Appalachian history.

But it was how he used that fame that is most noteworthy. As he witnessed the sudden change wrought by large-scale logging upon mountain communities and mountain landscapes — again, see the passage above — he began to see the necessity of preserving what at one time had seemed an endless forest.

Kephart began writing articles and advocating to whomever would listen about the need to create a national park in the Smokies. The idea riled many of the mountaineers who had become his friend, for many at that time did not see the benefit of locking away land that had for generations been hunted, fished and used for its bounty to house and feed entire communities. There was also the unheard of controversy of creating a park — in essence, taking the land — of hundreds of families whose farms and homes were in the area being considered for the national park.

As we realize now, Kephart and others who fought relentlessly for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park were visionaries. They carved a jewel out of the remaining mountain wilderness, creating what has become one of the most bio-diverse habitats left in North America and the entire planet.

Early park supporters also gave this region another important legacy — an economy based on tourism rather than taking from the land. Although the logging and timber industry are still important and still a vital part of the mountain heritage, the preserved forests and wilderness also have fed generations of mountain families. People come here to connect with the mountains, to get that same feeling Horace Kephart describes in the above passage.

As we mark the creation of this great park, it’s a proper time to pay homage to those like Kephart who made it possible. This would be a vastly different place had they not prevailed.

More than 200 state and local dignitaries gathered for a ceremony atop Clingmans Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park last week.

The event kicked off the celebration of the park’s 75th anniversary, bringing together communities from North Carolina and Tennessee to pay homage to the shared triumphs and tragedies that led to the park’s creation.

“Welcome to your national park,” Smokies Superintendent Dale Ditmanson told the audience in his opening remarks.

The words couldn’t hold more true for the Smokies. While every national park belongs to the people, the Smokies’ unlike others was occupied land at the time of the park’s creation. It was riddled with family farms and rural communities, complete with churches, schoolhouses and hundreds of cemeteries. Even the steep mountainsides were integral to survival as communal hunting and fishing grounds and an open range for livestock.

As many as 7,000 people were pushed out to make way for the park, according to leading historians. It marked the first time in history the power of eminent domain claimed land for recreation purposes.

The historic sacrifice bonds neighboring communities to the Smokies more so than in other parks. Ditmanson asked those in the audience to stand whose family heritage stems from lands taken by the park, and at least two dozen rose, among them Alice Aumen of Cataloochee Ranch in Haywood County; Lynn Collins, director of the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority; and Luke Hyde, owner of the Calhoun House in Bryson City.

“For those who gave so much, a heartfelt thanks,” Ditmanson said.

Ditmanson said the park is indebted to the families uprooted so the park could be created.

“Time has healed many but not all wounds. There are still many who wished it turned out different,” Ditmanson said.

Many now realize, however, the park saved rather than destroyed their heritage, Ditmanson said.

“The park saved the mountains and preserved their beauty,” Ditmanson said.

Ditmanson heard this sentiment reflected during a speech a recent Cataloochee Reunion, an annual gathering of hundreds of people with family ties to Cataloochee Valley, a section of the park in Haywood County.

“’We can’t trust other people’s grandchildren,’” Ditmanson recalled of the speaker’s words. “Everybody laughed, but people got it. Somebody’s grandchildren would have sold out and it wouldn’t be the beautiful place it is today.”

Hard-fought battle

The Smokies is the “people’s park” in another sense. The idea for a national park in the Smokies rose from the vision of local leaders who fought nearly two decades to bring it to fruition. Park proponents first had to convince the nation the Smokies was worthy of national park status and esteemed enough to join the ranks of only a small handful of Western icons at time like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone.

Meanwhile, they had to convince people at home that national park tourists would provide an economic engine, justifying the sacrifice of those losing their land.

And finally, the park fathers had to raise the money to buy all the land. Of the $10 million estimated cost, $1 million had to be raised within towns and cities neighboring the park.

“We have to remember the many people whose foresight and vision made this possible,” N.C. Rep. Phil Haire, D-Sylva, said during last week’s ceremony. “Let us pause to honor the many men and women whose vision, commitment and love for the mountains has made the Great Smoky Mountains National Park a treasure for future generations.”

The preservation of grand landscapes and vast wilderness is important to the human psyche, Ditmanson added.

Indeed, the best part about the celebration for many in attendance was the blue sky, spring air and crisp, long-range views of the Smokies at their finest. The parking lot sits above 6,000 feet, offering unrivaled vistas.

“I don’t think you can get any closer to heaven than where we are sitting here today without being in heaven,” Cherokee Chief Michell Hicks said when he took the podium.

Hicks said the park has preserved his ancestral landscape, which holds spiritual and cultural meaning for the Cherokee.

“The park helps keep us whole from any other people moving in on the historic landscape of the Cherokee,” Hicks said.

Depending on how you slice it, the 75th anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park could be celebrated on a variety of days.

The park has deemed the official anniversary date to be June 15, 2009, exactly 75 years after the U.S. Congress passed official legislation sanctioning the park.

But nearly six weeks before then on April 28, a delegation from North Carolina traveled to Washington, D.C., and presented land deeds for the park to the federal government. In fact, the state presented its first stack of land deeds for the park three years early in 1931. Even though the acquisition wasn’t yet complete, it was enough to get the ball rolling and spurred the Department of Interior to go ahead and appoint the park’s first superintendent and a small staff of rangers to begin overseeing the land.

It wasn’t until much later, on Sept. 2, 1940, that President Franklin Roosevelt visited the park for its formal dedication ceremony

“Gov. Beverly Perdue probably didn’t set out to give Western North Carolina a slap in the face Wednesday.

“But we know a slap in the face when we see one, and this sure qualifies.”

— Asheville Citizen-Times editorial, April 23

Asheville Citizen-Times Editorial Page Editor Jim Buchanan — a Haywood County resident and a friend of mine — was right on target with this one. My sentiments exactly, and a sentiment shared by a whole lot of people in our region.

Gov. Beverly Perdue chose not to attend the first official event in the yearlong celebration of the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The occasion was a Governors Proclamation Ceremony and it was held at Clingmans Dome. Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen was there.

According to Perdue’s spokesperson, Chrissy Pearson, “The governor was invited and did give serous consideration but given the length of the trip and the potential travel cost involved she declined. It is so far out of the way and we are trying to cut back on travel.”

Perhaps Ms. Pearson didn’t get the significance of her words, but the “so far out of the way” line is a bit hard to swallow. Everyone out here knows how far we are from Raleigh (it’s about 6 hours from Clingmans Dome to Raleigh, and MapQuest estimates the fuel cost there and back at about $70). The distance in miles is significant, but it’s the attitude that can be read into the governor’s statement that is more revealing.

I could go on for thousands of words, but here are three important points about the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the southwestern part of her own state that Gov. Perdue might need to be reminded of:

• The park is probably the single largest economic engine in the state, if one doesn’t consider the “beach” as one entity. Nearly 10 million people a year visit the park, and the surrounding communities depend on it — especially when times are as tough as they are now. But somehow Tennessee has laid claim to the Smoky Mountains. Most citizens of this country think of Tennessee when they think of the park, and its governor made sure he had time on his schedule to get to the ceremony. Perdue’s absence only solidifies Tennessee’s link with the Smokies and surely will help the towns on the western side of the park.

• The still-evolving legacy of the park— from a cultural standpoint — deserves recognition from leaders in Raleigh, including the governor. She could have stood on the podium and made note of how the creation of the park was controversial in its day because so many residents were uprooted from their homes and communities, their land forcibly “taken” (though they did get compensation, that’s the general phrase used). She could have pointed out that the initial skepticism about the park was heartfelt but that its creation has become a grand success, creating a jewel for future generations and a permanent gold mine for the economies in the state’s far west.

• Finally, she could have assured citizens here that this region, though many miles from Raleigh, is not “out of the way.” From a political standpoint, Perdue should know that citizens in the mountains have a long history feeling that they have been left out. A visit to this important ceremony would have helped establish that Perdue does indeed feel differently.

I’ve had the good fortune to live, literally, all over North Carolina — Fayetteville (south piedmont), Boone and Blowing Rock (northwest), Durham (central), Raleigh (central), Roanoke Rapids (northeast), Elizabethtown (southeast) and now Waynesville. All of those places are special, but not a single one has people imbued with the strong sense of place that is the norm for those here in the mountains. The creation of the park is an important component of this legacy, and Perdue’s no-show will have some saying that she just doesn’t understand that.

In the grand scheme of things, this probably doesn’t rank very high in terms of Perdue’s mistakes during her early months in the governor’s office. What it indicates, however, is that some things just haven’t changed much in Raleigh.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

A design has been finalized for a new $3 million visitor center at the North Carolina entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park outside Cherokee.

The new visitor center will focus on the cultural history of the park, from early Native Americans to Appalachian heritage. The park has thousands of artifacts collected from people who once lived in the park, but they are locked up in storage since the park has nowhere to display them. The new visitor center will finally put the public in touch with some of these implements of early life, from spinning wheels to farm tools to moonshine stills.

“We are going to be using those artifacts to tell the story of the people who lived here,” said Kent Cave, a park ranger who supervises visitor outreach with a specialty in Appalachian studies. “This is a fulfillment of a dream and of a promise.”

Cave said the original plan for the park dating back to the 1940s called for a cultural heritage museum on the N.C. side of the park, while the visitor center on the TN side focuses on ecology and natural history of the Smokies.

The cultural heritage theme will dovetail with the Mountain Farm Museum already in place at Occonaluftee, where visitors can see old farm buildings and demonstrations of early life.

“You aren’t just talking about the stuff, you are out there with it,” said Bob Miller, spokesperson for the park. “You can feed the chickens and talk to people about what they are seeing. This will be an extension of the farm.”

Miller said the park will judiciously select which artifacts go on display, since the park has far more than the new visitor center can possibly hold.

“A tiny portion of this stuff will be on display, just like at the Smithsonian where only a tiny portion of what they have is displayed for the public,” Miller said.

The current visitor center at Occonaluftee is old, cramped and doesn’t do justice to the most visited national park in the country.

Nearly 2 million people crossed into the park via the entrance on U.S. 441 last year, passing by the doorstep of the visitor center. Only 350,000 people ventured inside, but far more might stop in if it offered more in the way of exhibits.

The old visitors center was constructed in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corp with the intention of serving merely as a ranger station. It is only 1,100 square feet, while the new one will be almost 7,000.

The old visitor will be converted to classroom space. The new visitor center will be constructed beside it. The parking lot will be reconfigured, along with the entrance off U.S. 441.

“We are extremely excited about having a new state-of-the-art facility,” said Park Superintendent Dale Ditmanson.

Ditmanson lauded the fundraising that will pay for the entire cost of the new center.

The Great Smoky Mountains Association, which operates bookstores in the park, has committed $2.5 million for its construction. The Friends of the Smokies will provide the $500,000 to design and create all the maps, exhibits and displays.

The visitor center will meet national certification standards as an environmentally friendly building under LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

“The new Center is being designed be as energy efficient and sustainable as we can make it,” Ditmanson said.

Some of the environmental designs being considered are

• Geothermal Heat and Cooling: The heating and cooling system will take advantage of the constant 55 degrees temperature of the earth, by pumping water into the ground though tubing where it will gain or give off heat, increasing the efficiency of the system.

• Passive solar: The orientation of the building and the select placement of windows will allow plenty of sunshine into the building and also provide heat. Working with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Park has taken solar measurements where windows are to be placed, to be sure they are sized correctly, to allow just the right amount of light, and offset the need for heat.

• Rain water cistern: A cistern will be collect rain water from the roofs. The water will be filtered and then used to flush toilets.

• Water Saving Fixtures: Bathroom fixtures will use waterless urinals and water saving water faucets and toilets.

• Recycled Materials: Everything from roofing materials, to cabinets, siding, and structural supports will be made of recycled materials.

• Landscaping: Natives plantings will be used that will not require extensive watering after they become established.

Jerry Span stared down the sign post for Old Settlers Trail. The temperature registered a mere 6 degrees, and the 17 miles of frozen trail stretching before him through a remote corner of the Smokies loomed large in his mind.

As the outdoor director for Fontana Village, Span’s job was leading hikes. This one had been on the schedule for months, but only one other hearty soul showed up.

“We can do this,” Span thought, hitching up has backpack and thinking of the body heat that would warm his limbs once he got moving.

The hike was one of 75 Span pledged to guide this year in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. When he pitched the idea of “75 for the 75th” both his boss at Fontana Village and the park service applauded.

But less than two months into the taxing project, the realities of the intensive schedule were starting to sink in. The hikes criss-cross every corner of the park. Cataloochee one week, Fontana the next, with a jaunt up Deep Creek squeezed in between. With only 52 weeks in a year, Span had to double up on two hikes a week for much of 2009.

The line-up leaves little wiggle room for canceling a hike and still meeting the goal of 75. Thus the onward-and-upward mantra at Old Settlers trailhead earlier this month.

Span has just one comrade in arms for all 75 hikes — Cheryl Morgan, a local woman. But Span didn’t expect many takers for the full line-up. He mostly hopes to be an inspiration for people to kick their hiking up a notch.

In particular, it will help those striving for their 900-miler status: an elite title for those who have hiked all 900 miles of trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

“The logistics of doing all 900 miles is a nightmare. I’ve talked to a lot of people who say they’ve been working on it for 15 years, so this helps with logistics,” Span said.

“For people who had been thinking about starting, this gives them an incentive.”

The hikes include a shuttle service, making transport to far-flung trails on the Tennessee side of the park easier to get to. It also helps with long trails, which are hard to accomplish solo if you have to hike back out the same way you came. Those on Span’s hikes will benefit from two vehicles, allowing a shuttle between the trailhead and terminus. The cost of the hike if you ride along in the van is $15 per person.

The hikes are organized through Fontana Village and its hiking club, called Fontana Hiking Club. Span organized the hiking club last year, attracting people from across the region for guided treks.

Mapping out the year of hikes was a challenge in and of itself. Longer hikes were more suited to summer when there’s more daylight. Span studied each trail description before penciling it in. Take Eagle Creek, for example, with more than a dozen stream crossings.

“We put that in the summer because we definitely don’t want to be getting our feet wet in the winter,” Span said.

With the worst of winter hopefully behind them, Span is looking for participation on the hikes to ramp up, especially as attention surrounding the park’s 75th anniversary culminates moving toward summer. If Span is still around, just look out for the 100th.

A new rule could make it easier to open up trails in national parks to mountain biking.

Mountain biking isn’t banned in national parks as a matter of course, although it is rare to find parks where it is allowed. Before allowing mountain bikes, a park must undergo an extensive environmental analysis heavily laden with opportunities for public comment.

The rule change would loosen the requirements, allowing what amounts to an “abbreviated analysis,” said Greg Kidd, a representative with the National Parks Conservation Association Asheville office. Needless to say, Kidd’s organization is against any truncation of the process.

“We feel strongly it is important to have the full analysis and that includes public participation and opportunity for the public to weigh in,” Kidd said.

But Kent Cranford, owner of Motion Makers bike shop in Sylva, thinks the current process is so arduous that it is essentially a barrier.

“This new rule change will make that process much easier. Right now it is an ugly process,” Cranford said.

Cranford said the rule change will streamline the process, not totally skirt it.

“My understanding is that it won’t remove any barriers of making sure mountain bikes aren’t going to damage anything. They are still going to have to go through the environmental process and the approval process,” Cranford said. But it wouldn’t be as burdensome, time consuming or costly to the park.

The rule change came at the suggestion of outgoing President Bush, a mountain biker himself, in his final days in office. The proposal could be dead in the water already, however.

“When Obama came in, they put a freeze on all rule changes that had been promulgated by the outgoing administration,” said Bob Miller, spokesperson for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. “At the end of any administration there is a lot of rule making, or changing, as they go out the door. The new administration wants to catch their breath and decide which are in play. There is no telling when this one will move forward.”

A public comment period has been underway for the rule change and will expire Feb. 17.

To read the rule change, go to edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/E8-29892.htm. To comment, go to www.regulations.gov and use the code 1024-AD72.

— By Becky Johnson

Mountain bikers face a long, steep climb in their fight to see more trails opened to tires in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

One of the major hurdles facing the sport is stereotypes, said Kent Cranford, a mountain biker and owner of Motion Makers bike shop in Sylva.

“People have images from TV that somebody is going to come jumping over their head or screaming by with tattoos and piercings all over,” Cranford said. “This is not a Mountain Dew commercial. Most people are effectively hiking on wheels. They want to get out in the backcountry and see the wilderness, too.”

Mountain biking would allow people to see more of the park, a lot of which is out of bounds due to distance.

“As big as that park is, penetrating in 20 miles is not something you can do without staying overnight,” said Timm Muth, a mountain biker who lives near Sylva. “But on a bike 10 miles in and 10 miles back out is very doable in a day, and it would make the park more accessible to a lot of people.”

Pam Forshee, a mountain biker in Franklin, said she rarely visits the Smokies now.

“There is nothing for me other than hiking. If I could go over there and hike and bike and camp for the weekend it would be heaven,” said Forshee, who runs Smoky Mountain Bicycles in Franklin with her husband, Dave.

“I don’t understand why the national parks have not allowed bicycles in the park all these years. We have as much right to be on the trails as anyone else.”

Cranford is a member of the International Mountain Biking Association, which has been lobbying for bike access in national parks for years. Cranford thinks they are steadily chipping away at the barriers shutting out bikes.

“It is wrong thinking to think a trail can just be this, or just that. It is all of our land,” Cranford said.

But many of the hikers and nature lovers who currently enjoy the trails of the Smokies don’t want to see mountain bikes join the mix. Reasons include wear and tear on the trails, the risk of collisions and what many consider a more intrusive form of recreation.

Greg Kidd, senior program manager with the National Parks Conservation Association Asheville office, agreed that nearby national forests provide ample opportunity for mountain bikers and a host of other recreational uses including like hunting and kayaking. But parks aren’t the place for such a smorgasbord.

“The fact is that national parks are a place apart. They are designed for a different kind of experience,” Kidd said. Besides, “The park doesn’t even have the resources to maintain the trails as currently used.”

Horses and bikes

Mountain bikers pushing for access in the Smokies often point to horses on the trails and ask: why them and not us? Horseback riders are allowed on approximately half of the park’s 800 miles of trails, with the greatest percentage being on the North Carolina side of the park.

“I think it is unfair they grandfather horses into the park and won’t allow bikes as well,” Muth said. ”Certainly any trails that are already open to horses should be open to mountain bikes. Mountain bikes have much lower impact on the trail surface than a horse.”

The mechanics of a horse hoof versus a bike tire are quite different. The horse rotates its hoof as it makes contact with the ground, gouging up the trail bed in the process. The loose soil is then more vulnerable to erosion. Mountain bikes, on the other hand, compact the soil and harden the trail’s surface, helping it stay put.

“Horses kick up the terrain a lot more than bikes do,” Forshee summed up.

But Kidd disagrees with the bikers’ line of thinking.

“Certainly there is no question that horses have an impact on the trail. But if we increase the types of uses — like bicycling — that would certainly just exacerbate the problem,” Kidd said.

Not to mention the sheer number of mountain bikers compared to horse owners, Kidd said.

“Arguably with the growing popularity of mountain biking, the amount of potential mountain bike use on those trails would dwarf the amount of horse use,” Kidd said.

But the flip side is mountain bikers would help take care of the trails they ride, Cranford said.

“That is the upside. If they let mountain bikes in, they work on trails,” Cranford said. “Ask the forest service how they feel about mountain bikers and they’ll tell you they love them because they come in like crazy to work on trails.”

Sharing the trail

Mountain bikers aren’t surprised when they encounter a backlash.

“You often have different user groups who want to be selfish and keep places to themselves,” Muth said.

But Forshee pointed to the arrangement at Tsali — where trails are designated for mountain biking and horseback riding on alternate days — as proof it can work. Even sharing the same trail, it could work, she said.

“It is a matter of using caution and proper etiquette,” Forshee said.

That etiquette calls for bikers to yield to horses, and for good reason, Muth said.

“I’ve seen guys go flying by a horse within a couple feet. They say ‘I’m not going to ride into the horse,’ but that’s not the point. You are going to scare the heck out of them,” Muth said. When they get spooked, they could buck their rider.

Instead, mountain bikers should always come to a stop, get off their bikes and offer a greeting.

“The talking helps because the horses recognize you are another person. When you are on a bike they can’t figure out what the heck all that stuff is,” said Muth.

Muth generally says “hello” then asks the horseback riders how to handle getting past. If they have skittish horses, they might ask the bikers to scoot off the trail while they navigate by.

“They are very appreciative of this,” Muth said of his approach. “Different user groups need to take the time to understand what each others needs are out there.”

While most of Muth’s encounters are friendly, there have been exceptions. In an extreme case, he came upon hunters at Tsali who stood across the trail with their guns and wouldn’t let him pass. On another occasion, his wife and son ran into a hunter who was put out by the their presence and fired shots into the air as they rode away.

Safety first

An oft-heard argument by those opposed to mountain biking is the fear of collisions.

“Part of what is fun about mountain biking is moving at a fast clip. If a bicyclist comes screaming around a bend on a trail and an unsuspecting hiker happens to be walking up that trail, that could lead to some very serious issues,” Kidd said.

Muth said there is always that chance, and has actually seen a few near collisions.

“I love to fly fast downhill and you could run into problems if you come around a blind curve and there are three or four people standing on the trail,” Muth said. “Mountain bikes need to be conscious that when they come around a blind corner they should expect there could be somebody standing there.”

By the same token, hikers should assess the vehicles at a trailhead for clues as to who is on the trail that day. If there are three or four cars with bike racks, it should signal to hikers be cautious — or pick a different trail, Muth said.

“If I know it is hunting season and there are three pickup trucks at the trailhead with gun racks, I say ‘you know, maybe I will go somewhere else,’ as much out of consideration for them as safety for myself,” Muth said. “There is plenty of room for everybody. You just have to be conscientious that everybody has a right to be doing different things.”

Not any time soon

While optimistic, bikers acknowledge they may have a long road ahead of them in their fight for access in national parks.

Bob Miller, a park ranger and spokesperson for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, said the park has no plans in the near future to tackle the mountain bike issue.

That was pretty much the answer mountain bikers were bracing for.

“I don’t think we are going to see much in the way of trails opened up,” Cranford said.

Although a proposed rule change would make it easier for parks to open trails to mountain bikes — namely by removing the requirements for a taxing analysis — Miller said the park would take the issue seriously and opt for a thorough and comprehensive review even if it wasn’t technically required.

The top issues to weigh: would mountain biking degrade the national park experience of others using the trails and would mountain biking harm the ecosystem, Miller said.

Another question is whether the park could afford the additional ranger patrol and rescue operations that would go along with mountain biking in the park, or afford the extra trail maintenance.

Miller said such a study would be done only in the context of a parkwide planning process, not a piecemeal approach of opening a trail here and there. Overlay that with drawn out public comment periods, and you have one massive undertaking.

Miller said the Smokies has broached the subject anecdotally, but never had what you would call a formal request to take on the issue.

“The fact is we are surrounded by some pretty nice mountain bike areas already,” Miller said.

But Muth said the mountain bike trails in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests don’t offer enough diversity, particularly by way of easier mountain bike trails. There are few options for beginners or even intermediate riders.

Mountain bikers say they aren’t advocating for a wholesale opening of all trails in the park, admitting there are some trails that simply aren’t suitable.

“I don’t think bikes should be on the Appalachian Trail,” Cranford said by example. Others would be too steep, too narrow, too rocky.

“Most of the trails there wouldn’t even be fun to ride,” Cranford said.

Likewise, Kidd isn’t opposed to bikes carte blanche.

“I think if a trail is appropriately designed and designated specifically for mountain biking use, I think there is a potential for mountain bikes to find a place in the park,” Kidd said. “As for bike use in the backcountry, we would likely find that incompatible as a blanket statement. But that’s not to say there is not a single trail in the park where it would not be appropriate.”