Blue Ridge Parkway visits high despite Helene. Trump officials don't want it publicized
ASHEVILLE - Despite a natural disaster, two Western North Carolina national park sites remained among the most visited in the country in 2024, though a March 5 National Park Service memo indicated the Trump administration wishes to obscure information relevant to the number of visitors.
While major sections of the roadway were devastated by Tropical Storm Helene in late September, the Blue Ridge Parkway, a skinny park that stretches 469 miles across the Blue Ridge Mountains from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Cherokee, remained among the most popular national park units, with more than 16.7 million visitors in 2024.
Only decreasing from 2023 by around 24,000 visits, the parkway was only second to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which had more than 17 million visitors in 2024.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which sprawls across a half-million acres of rugged, forested terrain in Western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, was also among the most visited, with 12.1 million visitors. It was the most visited national park in the country.
More: After DOGE firing, Carl Sandburg National Park Service ranger hopes to be reinstated
In a March 5 memo, National Park Service administrators told staff that they would not be allowed to actively publicize the information, even though the federal agency had a record 331 million visitors in 2024, according to NPS data published March 5. It comes after roughly 1,000 park service employees were fired in February by the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, under the direction of billionaire Elon Musk as ordered by President Donald Trump.
The memo read that there would be "no external communications rollout" for 2024's visitation data and that parks can publish final data online if "that is the park's standard process," but that no press release or "proactive communications, including social media posts" should be made. The memo was published publicly by Resistance Rangers, a group of current and former park service employees who have organized protests against recent firings across the country.
The memo also came with a format for how to respond to visitation-related inquiries that begins with "Thanks for reaching out. You can access service wide and park data at irma.nps.gov/stats." A park service spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from the Citizen Times.
Phil Francis, chair of the executive committee for the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, said that the visitation statistics typically reflect "good news" and opined that the lack of information about 2024's visitation was a product of what the current administration doesn't "want people to see." Francis previously served as the superintendent — the top job — for both the Smokies and the parkway.
"One of the concerns is that the staffing levels of the parks are in decline. With the DOGE cuts to the parks, there's going to be even fewer people to manage record numbers of visitation," Francis said. "I'm just guessing that's probably what they don't want people to see."
The release of visitation information typically comes with a reminder: a park's impact on the local economy. The 2023 park service economic impact report set the Smokies and the parkway among the top three national park units in the country. Together, the parks generated an estimated $5.1 billion economic output in 2023 and supported over 52,000 jobs, in surrounding communities, including Asheville, where the parkway is headquartered, according to the park service estimates.
Francis called the park's economic impact "critical," and noted that with extended closures the Blue Ridge Parkway, which suffered damages that will cost over $1 billion to repair, should indicate that the park needs to be repaired to benefit the region. At least 57 known landslides were recorded after the storm and some major sections of the parkway remain entirely closed.
The parkway's busiest months tend to be during the summer and fall, particularly when the leaves are changing. However, 2024 saw higher-than-usual use throughout the first eight months, with visitation peaking during June, July and August, but staying above usual use in February, March, April and May. August had the highest number of visitors, with over 2.1 million visiting the parkway, a 16% increase from 2023.
Only 739,523 visited in October, a decline of nearly 66% compared to October 2023, when 2.2 million visited the parkway.
Parkway closures can be monitored at nps.gov/blri/planyourvisit/roadclosures.htm.
Last year was the second time since 2017 that the parkway reached over 16 million visitors, having steadily increased in visitation since the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
2014
13,941,749
2015
15,054,603
2016
15,175,578
2017
16,093,765
2018
14,690,418
2019
14,976,085
2020
14,099,485
2021
15,948,148
2022
15,711,004
2023
16,757,635
2024
16,733,639
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was the most visited national park in 2024, but its reported 1.1 million visitor decrease from 2023 to 2024 was not due to a decrease in actual visitation, Smokies spokesperson Katie Liming told the Citizen Times. The decrease was "anticipated due to substantial statistical changes made to improve the accuracy of GSMNP's visitation data," where some changes include improvements in accounting for vehicles that re-enter the park and a more accurate representation of how many people are in each vehicle across seasons.
"When we applied the new statistical procedures to the finalized 2023 visitation data for testing purposes, we observed an average decrease in monthly visitation of 8%. It's important to note that these statistical adjustments were only tested on the 2023 data and are not reflected in any public reports for that year. The 2023 data was solely used as a testing baseline to understand the potential implications of the new procedures," Liming told the Citizen Times.
2014
10,099,276
2015
10,712,674
2016
11,312,786
2017
11,338,893
2018
11,421,200
2019
12,547,743
2020
12,095,720
2021
14,161,548
2022
12,937,633
2023
13,297,647
2024
12,191,834
More: Blue Ridge Parkway Helene repairs to cost more than $1 billion; What to know
More: Blue Ridge Parkway 'critical' land in Balsam Mountains conserved after decades-long deal
Will Hofmann is the Growth and Development Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Got a tip? Email him at WHofmann@citizentimes.com. Consider supporting this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: NPS: Blue Ridge Parkway visitation statistics should not be publicized
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