By JONAH LOSSIAH
One Feather Reporter
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK – Starting on Wednesday, March 1, visitors to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park (GSMNP) will be required to display a parking pass when on Park property.
Visitors can buy daily, weekly, or annual passes. Members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI: will not need to pay anything, however. As part of the rollout of for these parking passes, the Park has provided to give annual passes to the Tribal leadership to distribute to the community. Tribal members simply need to stop by the Executive Office front desk with their enrollment card. After that, one signature will give you an annual parking tag that you can display on the passenger side of your windshield.
For the general public, daily passes are $5, weekly passes are $15, and annual passes are $40. They can be purchased at recreation.gov or in-person at the various visitors centers throughout the Park.
Kendra Straub, management and program analyst for GSMNP, offered some insight into how the park decided to implement this program.
“The original conversations around the parking tags really centered around the Park finding a sustainable way to operate this treasure with flat budgets, inflation, and being the most visited park. We were just in a place where staff were strained and we were having to balance the budget by decreasing staff and decreasing visitor services. And that’s the last thing we want to do. It just became a place where we realized, to make that sustainable operation a reality and to protect the park for today’s visitors and future generations, we knew something big had to change,” said Straub.
Straub said that the GSMNP operates differently than other National Parks in many ways, including their lack entrance gates.
“There’s a lot to learn. One of the things we learned is that there is, by policy at the National Park Service level, the ability to exempt traditionally associated tribal members from those fees. Typically, we think about when we think about entering the park. So, that’s something we absolutely wanted to model, even though this is not an entrance fee.”
She said that the broad policies set by the National Park Service had them paying close attention to how they rolled out the parking tags.
“It’s really a matter of policy that the park service takes kind of an expansive interpretation of the phrase ‘traditional activities’. Because the idea is the exemption applies while performing traditional activities. This applies to all American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. It’s something that’s really across the service and by policy.”
She said it’s this type of broad policy that made them to give a broad answer. Instead of trying to come up with a specific solution as to who should get free passes, the Park wanted to respect their tribal collaborators and not allow for anyone to get lost in the weeds when interpreting the policy.
“It doesn’t just affect tribal folks that are traditionally associated with the specific land. So, for us, it was an operational challenge as well. If you think about visiting an entrance fee park, you can have that conversation with somebody at that entrance kiosk. Of course, we don’t have that. We had to think of a way to physically represent that. Where we landed was providing annual tags, at no cost, to EBCI leadership to then distribute. So that could be as seamless as possible an experience,” said Straub.
“Really, it’s not a static concept or a list of activities that is defined by the Park Service. But really, should be defined by the respective communities themselves. So, when we look at our policy and interpret our policy, we acknowledge and are aware that traditional activities – by their very nature – are broad and cover everything from plant gathering to passing on tribal expertise and indigenous knowledge.”
When it comes to the benefits of this program, Straub thinks this will be a transformative opportunity for the Park. The thing she wants everyone to remember is that these fees will only make the park a better place visit.
“100% of these dollars stay in the Smokies. By policy but also by intent and by goals of our own park. Every single dollar is used to improve visitor services. This gives us the opportunity to be in a position where we have the tools and toolbox that large parks of similar size and complexity have had for a long time. Parks with entrance fees. The ability for us to increase our law enforcement presence. To increase our maintenance staff presence so we can do things like clean our restrooms even more frequently. With the visitation levels we have, it’s kind of an endless need.”
More information from the Park can be found at nps.gov.
The EBCI Executive offered the following information regarding the passes:
- Person intending to use the pass must be the individual picking pass up
- Please bring proof of enrollment with a picture ID
- 1 parking pass per individual
- Parking tags will not be replaceable, refundable, transferable, or upgradable.
- Each tag will be valid for a single vehicle and must include a license plate number matching the vehicle in which it is displayed.
- Display of physical parking tags in each vehicle will be required. Digital representations will not be accepted.
- Parking tags will not be location specific. A parking tag will be required to park anywhere within the boundaries of the Smokies.
- Parking tags will not be required for motorists who pass through the area or who park for less than 15 minutes.
- Please direct all questions to 828-359-7009or visit com for more info
