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Saturday, June 20, 2015

The unbearable appeal of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

IMAGE: ADAM SCHWEIGERT

Established in 1934, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park attracts as many as 10 million visitors a year.

The name is no mystery to those who have been — most days the skies over the mountains are covered by a smoky blue haze. The park's 800 square miles, stretching from Tennessee to North Carolina, includes the highest peak on the East Coast and a rich and complicated history.

SEE ALSO: 20 photos that show the exquisite beauty of America's National Parks

Also, there are black bears. And that means, depending on the time of year, there are baby black bears.

I could tell you more about the park, but wouldn't you rather look at a baby bear — spotted in May of this year — instead? Let's do both.

Even before the park, the mountains were a popular destination for travelers because of the mountain climate and natural springs.

"Early lodging establishments introduced people to the beauty of the Smokies, who spread the word which led to the national park movement," Carroll McMahan, local historian and special projects facilitator at the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce, told Mashable.

Sevierville is one of the small towns, near Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, on the northern side of the park.

Combined, the three towns welcome almost 15,000,000 visitors annually, according to Amanda Marr, marketing director at the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce. Easy access to the park has made the region a tremendous tourism success.

While typical tourist attractions are a big focus for development, the region also promotes its natural resources — like ample wildlife — as a big draw.

Biologists estimate about 1,500 bears live in the park, according to the National Park Service.

That's almost two bears per square mile of the park, making sightings common. The park service is tasked with keeping bears (and humans) safe, so warnings about the animals are even more common.

If you spot a bear in the park, remember: They're best observed from afar. It's not only dangerous to get close to a black bear, it's illegal to intentionally get closer than 50 yards.

More about the beginnings of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park:

Friday, June 19, 2015

Why scientists are tracking how humans move through national parks

Hikers stop to look at the views near the Grand Canyon National Park's South Kaibab trail on March 16, 2015.

IMAGE: ANNA JOHNSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

15 hours ago

CHEYENNE, Wyoming — Scientists are putting tracking devices on a new species — people — as they try to learn more about how their movements affect ecosystems in national parks.

Park visitors carrying global positioning devices have provided data to Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park, so it can improve shuttle service to a popular and often congested lake. Another recent study at California's Yosemite National Park tracked where people stroll through two popular meadows, and pause now and then to admire the view.

SEE ALSO: Do national parks need Wi-Fi to stay relevant?

Now, people-tracking by researchers with Pennsylvania State University and Utah State University is helping Grand Teton National Park make decisions, including whether they should add parking areas, restrooms and a multipurpose trail along the way.

"It's going to help us better understand the expectations, the motivations and then the ultimate experiences that people have," park spokesperson Jackie Skaggs said.

Two years of research showed that between one-third and half of the visitors using an eight-mile section of Moose-Wilson Road in Grand Teton never left their cars or road bikes, but were just passing through. The rest stopped to ride bikes, hike trails or visit an interpretive center along the route, a mile and a half of which is unpaved, but could be.

Traffic along the road has increased 25% in just the past eight years or so.

Participation in the tracking studies is voluntary, researchers say, and most people are glad to help. Between 80% and 90% of those asked to carry a GPS receiver in Grand Teton in 2013 and 2014 agreed to participate. Hardly anybody failed to return the devices upon leaving the study area.

"People love their parks," said Peter Newman, a professor in Penn State's College of Health and Human Development who specializes in recreation, park and tourism management.

"They love to answer questions and know that their voice is being heard in some way."

"They love to answer questions and know that their voice is being heard in some way."

As for still being able to find solitude in a national park, that's sort of the point.

The same tracking technology that informs bus schedules in megacities can help prevent big concentrations of people in national parks, according to Kevin Heaslip, a former Utah State associate professor, who recently joined Virginia Tech as an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. "It's getting people to the right place at the right time, so they have a better experience while they're at the park," he said.

Questionnaires handed out along with the bare-bones GPS units asked what people wanted from their visit to Grand Teton. Opportunities for solitude? Time with family? Exercise? The researchers compared the survey responses to where people went, which they could plot in the backcountry to within 10 feet or less.

"We really need very detailed information on kind of exactly where people went when they traveled off trail," said Ashley D'Antonio, a postdoctoral researcher at Utah State's department of environment and society.

Finding out what motivates visitors could also help the National Park Service's efforts to make parks more attractive to younger generations.

Earlier this year, NPS launched the Find Your Park campaign, with the goal of making national parks as appealing to millennials as they have been with Boomers.

Additional reporting by Mashable