Blue Ridge Parkway 2023 visits surged, Great Smokies also had crowds; How many visitors?

ASHEVILLE — Whether it was to catch a glimpse of a black bear in the wild, hike to a stunning mountain top or just drive for miles gawking at endless views, about a million more people visited the Blue Ridge Parkway in 2023 than in 2022, according to preliminary numbers from the National Park Service.

Some 16.7 million recreation visitors came to enjoy the parkway last year, up from 15.7 million in 2022, according to the NPS. That’s about a 6 percent increase in parkway patrons year over year.

The long, skinny park stretches 469 curvy miles from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and crests the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains, passing directly through Asheville to its end at the entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Cherokee.

“An annual national announcement will come out soon, and a park announcement will come out shortly after that as well,” spokesperson Leesa Brandon with the parkway told the Citizen Times, adding that the data is still preliminary and subject to change.

But from the initial numbers, it appears the parkway remains in the No. 1 spot, taking claim to the most-visited unit of the National Park Service, drawing about a million more people than its closest rival, Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco.

However, the yearly ranking of the top visited NPS spots has not been released for 2023 yet.

October was the most popular month on the parkway last year, with 2.2 million visitors, perhaps pushed to the lead by the multitude of tourist flooding into the area to peep at fall foliage. That’s despite the parkway being closed for the last couple days of October after park staff received reports of visitors feeding and attempting to hold a young bear.

A close second in terms of popular months goes to September at just over 2 million visitors. The summer months also saw large numbers of visitors to the parkway, with June at 1.8 million visitors and July at 1.9 million.

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2022 parkway numbers: Blue Ridge Parkway visits in 2022 dropped. Is it still most popular national park?

The parkway lies about half in Virginia and half in North Carolina, the more rugged, high-elevation mountainous side that contains some of the busiest parts of the parkway. Features in the Western North Carolina section of the parkway include Mount Mitchell — at 6,684 feet elevation the highest peak east of the Mississippi — Craggy Gardens, Mount Pisgah hiking area and campground and Graveyard Fields. It also hugs the Mountains-to-Sea Trail.

How many people are visiting the Great Smokies?

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park also saw a 2.8% increase in visitors from the previous year, up from 12.9 million visitors in 2022 to 13.3 million in 2023, according to preliminary NPS data.

That makes 2023 the second-busiest year on record for the Smokies, taking the place of 2022.

"Of the years we have final, official data, 2021 was the most visited on record, with more than 14 million visits," spokesperson Emily Davis with the Great Smokies told the Citizen Times, also noting that the numbers for 2023 may change.

"Great Smoky Mountains National Park is consistently the most visited national park in the country," Davis added. "It lies within a day's drive of more than half the U.S. population and thus offers the opportunity for tens of millions of people to have a national park experience close to home."

According to Davis, the park's Gatlinburg entrance is the busiest in the park. Other entrances have seen a "significant growth in traffic volumes over the last decade" from 2012 to 2022, Davis said.

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The Smokies covers a half-million acres of rugged, mountainous terrain on the Western North Carolina-eastern Tennessee border. It contains more than 800 miles of hiking trails and is riddled with rivers, streams, waterfalls, picnic areas, campgrounds and lots of wildlife, including elk and black bears.

Davis said they receive so many visitors that the demand for parking often outweighs availability at about 10 destinations in the park.

"For those popular locations, we encourage visitors to take advantage of shuttle opportunities that various businesses in local communities provide," Davis said. "We also encourage visitors to plan ahead and have several destinations, drives, or hikes in mind if their first choice is crowded or parking is unavailable."

Alongside visitors, both the parkway and the Smokies bring economic benefits in the billions to the area.

Visitor spending in gateway communities to these two NPS spots brought in a combined $3.4 billion to local WNC communities in 2022, up over 30% from 2021, according to National Park Service visitor spending reports.

Parkway economic impact: Great Smokies, Blue Ridge Parkway add $5 billion to local communities, NPS data shows

Blue Ridge Parkway by the numbers

Last year was the first 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.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park by the numbers

The Smokies was the most-visited national park in 2022, but it's yet to be seen if it takes the top spot for 2023. The distinction among the 424 NPS sites is that parks are those with “park” in the name, such as Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon.

Ryley Ober is the Public Safety Reporter for Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at rober@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter @ryleyober

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Blue Ridge Parkway and the Smokies surge in visitors for 2023