Smokies Life

Smokies Life is a nonprofit organization that has formed one of the longest-standing partnerships with the National Park Service. Its main goal is to enhance the scientific, historical, and educational efforts at Great Smoky Mountains National Park by offering valuable resources and services to those visiting the park. The effectiveness of this partnership relies on the ability to collaborate and adapt to the evolving needs of both the park and its guests.

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Articles

Cherokee artists connect through clay

3 days ago | smokieslife.org | Holly Kays

Tara McCoy’s artistic journey began at the age of 12. After enrolling in arts and crafts classes at her school, the seventh grader learned how to do beadwork, pottery, and other traditional Cherokee crafts, continuing these studies through high school on the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ Qualla Boundary. As she gained confidence, McCoy, an enrolled member of the tribe, entered contests and art shows, often winning money or selling her pieces to supportive teachers.
Branching out at Oconaluftee

1 week ago | smokieslife.org | Holly Kays

The more than 29,000 people who support Smokies Life as Park Keepers live all across the country, but on Friday, May 9, a group of them gathered to build personal connections with each other and Smokies Life CEO Jacqueline Harp against the backdrop of a rushing Oconaluftee River. “Really this is just an effort to give our members an opportunity to spend more time together,” Harp told the group gathered in front of Oconaluftee Visitor Center as the morning sun warmed the chill air.
All hands on deck to rehab a rugged Appalachian Trail section

2 weeks ago | smokieslife.org | Holly Kays

Somewhere after 2 p.m. on a sunny Wednesday in mid-March, the chaotic wind of a descending helicopter whipped the calm skies above the Appalachian Trail near Icewater Spring Shelter. Four people—two Smoky Mountains Hiking Club volunteers and two Appalachian Trail Conservancy employees—waited at the intersection of the Boulevard and Appalachian trails, watching the bundle of black locust logs suspended below the chopper come to a gentle rest in the small forest opening.
Biking in the Smokies

3 weeks ago | smokieslife.org | Katy Koontz

It can be hard to find a place to bike in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. You won’t find any mountain biking trails, and although bikes are permitted on all the park’s roads, most are too steep, too narrow, too winding, and too busy for safe and fun family biking. Fortunately, spectacular cycling options do exist. Here is a summary of all the best places in the park to ride a bike.
Reunion on the trail

3 weeks ago | smokieslife.org | Holly Kays

Every time I make the 500-mile trek north to my childhood home, I feel the tug of forgotten familiarity—the grassy backyard extending to a forest that’s roughly the same age as me, my grandfather’s nature photography hanging on the wall behind the kitchen table, the smell of home cooking, wooden floors, and years of intermingled lives I encounter nowhere else. Springtime in the Smokies elicits similar emotions.
Family fun picnic spots in the Smokies

1 month ago | smokieslife.org | Katy Koontz

If you spend much time at all in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, chances are you will be picnicking at some point—even if you’re just munching on a sandwich while sitting on a log or a rock. But fortunately, there are much more comfortable options. Five of the park’s 10 formally designated picnic areas are currently open, and each has picnic tables, grills, water fountains, and restrooms.
Authors anticipate ‘magic’ at 2025 Tremont Writers Conference

1 month ago | smokieslife.org | Holly Kays

Karen Spears Zacharias was 40 years old when she published her first book, but the seed that swelled into her latent identity as a writer was planted decades earlier, in the summer of 1966. After her father died in the Vietnam War, Zacharias, then nine years old, was sent to Tennessee to stay “in the way back holler of a place called Christian Bend” with her great-Aunt Cil. “There wasn’t a lot to do there other than to spend time with Aunt Cil, listening to her stories,” Zacharias said.
In the fight against litter, volunteer organizations are key

2 months ago | smokieslife.org | Holly Kays

Every year, millions of people visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park to experience its clear mountain streams, verdant views, and diverse forms of natural beauty. The mountains exert a powerful spell—but too often, that spell is broken by the sight of plastic bottles and candy wrappers scattered beside trailheads and overlooks, fast food bags and old tires flung along roadsides, and plastic bags or balloons hung in treetops.
Latria Graham wins prestigious journalism prize

2 months ago | smokieslife.org | Holly Kays

When Latria Graham logged onto a lunchtime Zoom call on January 3, no part of her was expecting to hear that she’d been selected for one of American journalism’s most prestigious awards. She figured the conversation with the Heising-Simons Foundation representative was meant to bolster another nominee for the American Mosaic Journalism Prize. Then she learned she’d won the award—and the $100,000 that went along with it. “I was just so shocked,” she said.
Long-lost Canadian library book sparks Smokies connection

2 months ago | smokieslife.org | Holly Kays

When Robert Murray graduated from the University of British Columbia in Canada 62 years ago, he took with him an education, lifelong memories, and a library book—Camping and Woodcraft: A handbook for vacation campers and for travelers in the wilderness. Murray had first borrowed the UBC Library book during his sophomore year. The volume, plain black but for gold lettering on the spine, was a 1931 edition of the 1921 book by Great Smoky Mountains National Park proponent Horace Kephart.