Law Enforcement Appreciation Days

coming at Cataloochee

Law enforcement workers can enjoy Cataloochee Ski Area in Maggie Valley for a reduced rate Feb. 2-3 during Fire and Rescue Appreciation Days.

The rate applies to fire and rescue personnel and their families, with valid ID. Learn more at cataloochee.com.

visitors know about the parking tag requirement and where they can get one for their next visit. New signage going in over the next several weeks will also explain how to comply with the parking tag requirement. Law enforcement rangers have a “series of tools” at their disposal, Soehn said, ranging from verbal or written warnings and courtesy stickers for absent car owners to citations and impoundment.

Visitors can purchase tags online ahead

Smoky Mountains National Park, and it won’t be the only major shift to take place in the coming years.

One big change is already underway — in December, the park began a months-long effort to place barriers preventing roadside parking in areas of the park where that has proven to be an issue. The barriers will be made of varying materials chosen specifically for each site — including boulders, splitrail fencing and wooden bollards — and will be placed at Newfound Gap Road near the Gatlinburg, Alum Cave and Chimney Tops trailheads; Little River Road near Laurel Falls trailhead; Cherokee Orchard Road; Big Creek and Deep Creek picnic areas; and sections of Clingmans Dome Road and Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail.

“We feel that for visitors having to get out of the car and walk almost a mile along a roadside, one of the busiest roads in the park, eventually that Swiss cheese can line up and someone gets hurt,” Cash said. “I feel the best policies in regards to safety are the policies that are put in place before there’s a fatality, not after there’s a fatality.” of time, or in person at any of nine visitor centers. Annual tags are available now, with weekly and daily tag sales starting in late February. By March 1, daily and weekly parking tags will be available via credit card purchases from six automated fee machines to be installed throughout the park.

“In future years depending on the success of those machines we hope to be able to put them in more places,” Soehn said.

The park is also working with community partners to advertise places where visitors who don’t have a printer can print out daily or weekly tags purchased online.

Looking Ahead

The Park it Forward program is a seismic change in the management of the Great

Cash said that for the next few years, ironing out the details of Park it Forward to make the program work seamlessly for its intended purpose will be the park’s priority. However, park leadership continues to consider additional measures to relieve congestion and improve visitor experience at exceptionally busy locations.

“We’re still experimenting with different kinds of visitor use management solutions such as shuttles, timed entries and hopefully some other possibilities that just provide better information to visitors about when the parking lots fill up and what the current conditions are,” Soehn said.

No new pilot projects are planned for 2023, with the park intending to focus on implementing Park it Forward. But that program’s success could fuel development of new visitor management initiatives in the future.

“Some of the revenues from that program can help us toward some of those goals to improve the visitor experience at some of those places,” Soehn said.