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National parks visitation explodes in WNC
For Western North Carolinians who see the outdoors as a safe haven when life gets hard, perhaps the most distressing part of the pandemic’s early days was the domino-like succession of closures in the region’s parks, forests and other open spaces.
Smokies shatters visitation records: Congestion issues prompt park to seek community input
The Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains logged a collective 3.7 million visits to park entrances in North Carolina west of Asheville last year, an 8.5 percent increase over 2018.
The Smokies overall demolished visitation records, with preliminary numbers showing 12.55 million visits in 2019 — a 9.9 percent increase over the 11.42 million seen in 2018. Foothills Parkway West accounted for about 67.7 percent of the 1.3 million additional visitors after a new 16.5-mile section of the road opened in November 2018, making 2019 the first full year it was open. More than 1.5 million people drove on the 33-mile section that includes the new piece of road.
