Experience Your Smokies---Experiences Extraordinaire!

Earlier this year, my husband and I were selected to participate in a wonderful program called Experience Your Smokies.  Already, the sessions we have attended have had us participating in fish population sampling in Middle Prong working alongside the acting Park Superintendent, discussing preservation of the Park's historic structures with the men who actually do the difficult preservation work, gathering seeds from native grass fields in Cades Cove to enhance the native grass populations in other fields in the Cove and other locations around the Park. We've heard from experts in Wildlife and Fisheries Management, Search and Rescue, Air Quality Control, Invasive Species Control. We've been taken inside the Twin Creeks Science and Education Center to see the extensive collection of animals and plants that have been preserved for future generations to be able to see.  Last week, we experienced Tremont Institute through the eyes of a student, taking a quick course in salamander ecology and winter tree identification.

If you have a keen interest in this most precious national treasure we call the Great Smoky Mountains, I highly recommend that you look into and apply for this special program.  The views into the behind-the-scenes functioning of this park will awaken an awareness you didn't even know you needed.