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Great Smoky Mountains National Park

National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

SMOKIES GUIDE The Official Newspaper of the Smokies • Spring 2025

Impressive displays of wildflowers like these white trillium can be found on many park trails as spring takes hold in the Smokies. Photo courtesy of Smokies Life Archives.

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Words with a Ranger Greetings! I am the park landscape architect, working in the Professional Services Branch of the Facilities Management Division. Growing up in Middle Tennessee, I came to know Great Smoky Mountains National Park through family vacations, school trips, backpacking trips, and day hikes. Those experiences gave me an appreciation for the National Park Service mission and the park’s iconic landscape. Today, I serve in the protection of the park’s natural and cultural resources so that others can have experiences here as satisfying as my own. I enjoy many aspects of my job and am proud to use my training as a landscape architect for public service. Our team designs, plans, and administers construction projects throughout the park that focus on developed areas, Continued on page 8

Explore a New Smokies Trail this Spring Laurel Falls Trail closed through 2026 for major upgrades

isitors to Great Smoky Mountains National Park have an opportunity to expand their hiking repertoire this spring following the closure of one of the Smokies’ most popular hikes, Laurel Falls Trail, for some muchneeded improvements. Several lesserused trails offer similar experiences. More than 300,000 visitors walk the 1.3-mile paved trail each year to witness 80-foot Laurel Falls. But the trail’s popularity has taken a toll on the infrastructure surrounding it. Since it was paved in 1963, the asphalt trail has become cracked, uneven, and broken in many places, and the parking lot is frequently full to overflowing. The construction, which began on January 6, is expected to take about 18 months to complete. Crews will build new viewing platforms at the falls to improve visitor movement and safety, repave and widen the asphalt trail,

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upgrade the existing parking area, add 50 new parking spaces, build a pathway with a guardrail connecting these spaces to the trailhead, and install signs and educational panels. Recreation fee revenue from campground and parking fees will fund the work, and the rehabilitated trail is expected to open mid-2026. Visitors can use the Laurel Falls closure as an opportunity to explore some comparable trails scattered throughout the park. Cataract Falls, which tumbles down 40 feet of rock, waits just a short hike away from Sugarlands Visitor Center near Gatlinburg. Other alternative hikes include Little River Trail, Middle Prong Trail, Sugarlands Valley Nature Trail, Metcalf Bottoms and Little Brier Gap trails to Little Greenbrier School and the Walker Sisters’ Cabin, and the Elkmont and Smokemont nature trails. GreatSmoky MountainsNPS

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PARKING TAG REQUIRED! Parking in the Smokies for more than 15 minutes requires a valid parking tag (annual tag pictured). For more info, scan code with camera app

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