Building Partnerships One Step at a Time

Great Smoky Mountains National Park and “Friends of the Smokies” Unite to Rehabilitate Trails

Create an endowment that helps fund much-needed rehabilitation on the high use trails in the park.

Presenters: Tobias Miller, Supervisory Facility Operations, National Park Service; Eric Wood, Assistant Trail Crew Leader, Great Smokey Mountains National Park; John Shapiro, Trail Crew Leader, Great Smokey Mountains National Park

Great Smoky Mountains National Park has partnered with their friends group, “Friends of the Smokies,” to create an endowment that helps fund much-needed rehabilitation on the high use trails in the park. The presentation will discuss the technical nature of the work and how it was accomplished. The program “Trails Forever” just finished its second large-scale project of a full rehabilitation of the Chimney Tops Trail. The work has been accomplished through the efforts of a professional National Park Service trail crew, leading both youth corps (Student Conservation Association and American Conservation Experience), as well as many group and individual volunteers.

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