Great Smoky Mountains National Park Podcasts & Blog

Marti Smith, the manager of 2 GSMA stores (Gatlinburg Welcome Center and Parkway Welcome Center), is about to become a 900 Miler.
The 900 Milers are an elite group of hikers who have hiked every single one of the 900 miles of trails inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
(No kidding, there are people who have done this, some of them more than once….!!)
Marti just made her first overnight hike, getting in 17.3 new miles out of the 26 she hiked.
This is one of the additional burdens of becoming a 900 Miler, you gotta hike many miles sometimes just to get to the starting point of some of the trails! And you don’t get to count the miles over trails you’ve already been on, even if there is NO WAY to avoid having to redo a particular trail because of the way the trails … trail off…
Bummer.
She carried 30 pounds. She put up her tent on the first try without directions! And she got to ride a boat back to the Marina at Fontana to get home…
Marti is currently facing an attempt to knock off the Lakeshore Trail, but it has over 100 blowdowns (trees that have fallen or been blown down across the trail). She’s hoping a crew can make some inroads with chainsaws before she has to make her hike.
Marti hikes with several other hardy souls, one of whom has a nifty blog.
The photo below is one I stole off of Wendell Liemohn’s site! Marti is the one in the middle. She is at the Hall (Kress) Cabin, the oldest historical structure in the park. Marti is between Fran and Fran’s husband Kirby.

He has a lot of nice pictures, go take a look.
I was amazed Marti could hike 841 miles doing day trips only…this means there is NO EXCUSE for normal people not to hike … a lot. Uh oh!