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Members of the National Park Service Trails Forever crew, which is funded by Friends of the Smokies, stand on a footlog they installed during the intensive rehabilitation of Ramsey Cascades Trail they completed between 2022 and 2024 with support from American Conservation Experience, Southeast Conservation Corps, and volunteers. Photo courtesy of National Park Service.

Ramsey Cascades Trail reopens following multiyear rehabilitation

For the first time in nearly three years, the trail to Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s tallest waterfall is fully open—and following an intensive rehabilitation of its entire four-mile length, Ramsey Cascades Trail is in better shape than it’s been in decades. “It’s a great feeling, just seeing how hard everybody worked and how they overcame all of the challenges that came up that we

Holly Kays December 22, 2024

Tremont Teacher-Naturalist Jeremy Johnson talks rocks with a group of students from Rockwood School District in Missouri. Photo by Rich Bryant, courtesy of Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont.

Park and partners work to expand environmental education outreach

Anne Thomas-Abbott had a “profound” experience this October as she observed students taking part in a National Park Service curriculum about trees and carbon sequestration. The power of the lesson came from the real-life, hands-on engagement in the forest, as students measured trees in the Look Rock area of Great Smoky Mountains National Park to find out how much carbon specific trees could capture and

Holly Kays December 15, 2024