Outdoors
Smokies announces selection of park concessioner to operate LeConte Lodge
The National Park Service has selected LeConte Lodge L.P. as the concessioner for the new contract to provide services at LeConte Lodge in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This contract will be effective for 10 years from 2025 to 2035.
Jackson County hosts bike rodeo
Join Jackson County Recreation from 2-5 p.m. Sunday, May 4, at Cullowhee Valley School for a bike rodeo.
This is a bicycle safety event where when you register you get a free helmet (while supplies last). All children will also be entered in a raffle to win a bike.
HRMC to offer free sports physicals to students
Haywood Regional Medical Center is offering free sports physicals for local student athletes on Tuesday, May 13, at the Haywood Regional Health and Fitness Center in Clyde.
Master gardeners to answer questions at Haywood farmers market
Master gardener volunteers will be on hand at a booth on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month, May through August, at Haywood’s Historic Farmers Market in Waynesville in the HART Theater parking lot.
Plan for maintenance along the Spur
Visitors should prepare for planned routine road maintenance in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Park maintenance crews will implement temporary, single-lane closures along the north and southbound Spur between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge through May 1 from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and then from May 5-8 from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Franklin farmers market returns for 2025
The Franklin farmers market will open up for the season beginning May.
River protest calls attention to debris removal
On Saturday, April 26, a group of protesters took to the Little Tennessee River to call attention to what they see as excessive debris removal in Macon County as part of the cleanup process from damage by Hurricane Helene last year.
Word from the Smokies: Couple will focus on insect field guide during park residency
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.”
Lake Junaluska plant sale offers new varieties
Lake Junaluska’s Spring Plant Sale will be 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, May 3, at the Nanci Weldon Memorial Gym.
For sale will be a few thousand plants, including an assortment of annuals, perennials, herbs and vegetables, hanging baskets and several varieties of native plants from the Corneille Bryan Native Garden, said Melissa Marshall, Lake Junaluska director of grounds.
