Park Problems Hit Close to Home
by Alex Hawes
National parks right in our backyard are battling to defend their natural heritage against the pressures of heavy visitation. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, along the North Carolina/Tennessee border, is the most popular park in the United States, attracting nearly ten million visitors in 1998. Half the population of the U.S. lives within a day’s drive.
Great Smoky is also our most polluted national park, according to an analysis of government air-quality data. Readings for low visibility, ozone, and acid precipitation grouped into a single air-pollution index have risen sharply in the Smokies since 1993. Ozone levels there are even worse than in nearby urban areas, creating a hazard to people, and to sensitive flora like black cherry and milkweed. This ecosystem’s tremendous diversity of life nine-tenths of which may still remain undiscovered, biologists speculate would be at risk if plants like these die off.
Most of the pollutants waft into the park from industrial sources outside the Great Smoky Mountains, rather than from tourists’ vehicles. Nonetheless, the Park Service has taken steps toward limiting vehicle use. Cades Cove, a preserved pioneer settlement found within Great Smoky Mountains, most closely approximates Yosemite Valley’s congestion. Each year, 2.5 million visitors descend upon Cades Cove, many circling a one-way loop around the site by car. The 11-mile-long drive can take two hours during the bumper-to-bumper traffic of summer and fall. The Park Service has closed off the Cades Cove loop to cars two mornings a week, from May to September, so that visitors on foot and on bike may enjoy the area in relative peace.
For Washington-area nature lovers, Shenandoah National Park provides one of the closest glimpses into the challenges of park management. The park supports an enormous diversity of wildlife, including the endangered Shenandoah salamander (Plethodon shenandoah), a species found nowhere else. Park rangers keep the salamander’s range secret for its safety.
Each year, an average 1.75 million people visit Shenandoah’s 200,000-acre territory stretched north to south along the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Traffic on the park’s Skyline Drive during peak fall foliage is legendary. But park spokesperson Lyn Rothgeb contends that this legend is over-hyped. "People seem to filter out throughout the park pretty well," she says. In fact, visitation to Shenandoah has been dropping by 100,000 a year recently partly due, ironically, to the park’s reputation of being too congested, Rothgeb believes.
There are no immediate plans to limit vehicle traffic in Shenandoah, particularly in light of declining attendance. However, the Park Service has had to intervene in the case of the park’s Old Rag hiking trail. More than 500 miles of trails wind through Shenandoah, but an estimated 100,000 hikers a year head to the Old Rag circuit for the unsurpassed, 360-degree view that its granite summit offers. In summer and fall, certain narrow passages along the seven-mile-long trail can become quite congested, as does the 200-car parking lot near the trailhead.
The Park Service has instituted a $5 fee for the Old Rag trail as a way to coax hikers into considering other options in the park, and to fund trail maintenance. The lack of parking also serves to limit crowding. Rangers urge those determined to conquer Old Rag to come on weekdays, or during winter or spring. With the May wildflowers in bloom, right about now would be a wonderful time to visit.
Alex Hawes
ZooGoer 29(3) 2000. Copyright 2000 Friends of the National Zoo. All rights reserved.
