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Great Smoky Mountain National Park Begins Charging Fees

By Rocky Thompson on January 23rd, 2013

smoky_mts

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Great Smoky Mountain National Park will implement their new and somewhat controversial fees for backcountry camping. The $4 per night permits will go into effect on February 13. The good news is that you don’t have to worry about getting reservations way in advance for this romantic trip since the NPS site will take then at anytime. Some of that money will go to providing more staff in the park, so it’s tough to get too upset about paying $4 per day.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Places. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Great Smoky Mountain National Park Begins Charging Fees”

  1. Clingmans Dome January 28th, 2013 at 2:03 pm

    The maintenance, improvements, rescues and law enforcement support the National Park Service provides in the backcountry requires financial support. Fairly reasonable fee and still no park entrance fee. If a backcountry camping fee helps to keep the park open, safe and protected – it seems reasonable.

  2. Tom February 6th, 2013 at 9:27 pm

    Too bad this fee won’t cover backcoubtry expenses like maintenance, improvements, rescues, and law enforcement. NPS has already stated that the fees collected will only cover the cost of the reservation system. Just wait, this is a test run for a bevy of GSMNP fees to come.