This is a vector point file showing Ranger Stations at Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM). Data were collected with GPS and/or aerial photography. The intended use of all data in the park's GIS library is to support diverse park activities including planning, management, maintenance, research, and interpretation.

This is a vector point file showing the backcountry shelters at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The majority of these data were collected using Trimble ProXR GPS unit. BEYOND DOUBT the most generally useful building in any park is a shelter, usually open but sometimes enclosed or enclosable, and then referred to as a recreation or community building, or a pavilion. It is admittedly no trivial task to achieve a desirable and unforced variety in such buildings within the confines of a moderate cost. This is true of other park structures, but it is more apparent of shelters because they are so universally existent in park areas. It is the almost invariable presence of at least one shelter, and often of several shelters, in every park that tends to make us especially and painfully aware of a spiritless monotony of design and execution. Exertion of effort to bring character to a shelter, such as will differentiate it from a thousand and one others, is all too rare; attainment of the objective, without bizarre result, still more rare. The attempt is worth all the creative effort expended; the successful accomplishment, truly worthy of praise. Because its purpose and use usually lead to its placement in the choicest of locations within the park, where it is natural to invite the park user to rest and contemplate a particularly beautiful prospect or setting, the shelter finds itself in the very center of a stage with a back-drop by the first Old Master. Its role is thus a difficult one, and is ill-played if rendered in the flippant slang or thin syncopated measures of the moment. Slapstick comedy technique is inappropriate; some dignity beyond passing fad or fashion is demanded of the shelter's stellar part. The essentials of a shelter include first of all overhead protection and a place to sit and rest. In size, shelters range from the very small and minor, in a simple rendering, to the large and complicated, when many extra-functional dependencies are included in the ambitious structures of a large, much-used park. Transition from the simplest to the specialized or more complex structure may be effected by the incorporation of one or more fireplaces, the partial or complete enclosing of the sides for protection from wind or weather, the provision of ovens or grills for picnic cooking and tables and seats for the picnic meal. The shelter of special purpose or the recreation building for year-round use results. There are colloquial departures in shelters and their functions that make for some well-defined varieties.

This is a vector point file showing mile markers at Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM). Data were collected with GPS and/or aerial photography. Mile markers depict administrative distances on major roads and rivers within the park boundary. Mile markers shown on roads were derived from the Federal Highways Adminstration Road Inventory Program.

Picnic areas are located at Big Creek, Chimneys, Cades Cove, Collins Creek, Cosby, Deep Creek, Greenbrier, Heintooga, Look Rock, Metcalf Bottoms, and Twin Creeks. Download a park map to view the location of picnic areas in the park.The picnic areas at Cades Cove, Deep Creek, Greenbrier, and Metcalf Bottoms remain open year-round. The remaining picnic areas are closed during the winter. See schedule below.Picnic pavilions are available at Collins Creek, Cosby, Deep Creek,Greenbrier, Metcalf Bottoms, and Twin Creeks, Pavilions can be reserved for groups one year in advance by calling (877)444-6777, or online at http://www.recreation.gov.All pavilions except Twin Creeks and Greenbrier cost $20 per use. The fee for the pavilion at Twin Creeks ranges from $35-75 depending on the usage. Greenbrier costs $10 per use. Payment can be made by credit card or personal check at the time the reservation is made.Please remember that feeding bears and other wildlife is illegal. The black bear symbolizes the invaluable wilderness qualities of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But bears are dying unnecessarily due to improper disposal of garbage or illegal feeding by visitors. A bear's remarkable sense of smell may lead it to human foods, such as a picnicker's cooler, garbage left in the open, or food scraps thrown on the ground or left in the grill.A bear that has discovered human food or garbage will eventually become day-active and leave the safety of the backcountry. It may panhandle along roadsides and be killed by a car or it may injure a visitor and have to be euthanized. Please do your part to help protect black bears and other wildlife in the Great Smokies. Clean your picnic area, including the grill and the ground around the table, thoroughly after your meal.

This is a vector point file showing intreptive signs and markers at Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM). Data were collected with GPS and/or aerial photography. Interpretive signs and markers depict points of interest corresponding to guided tours on roads and trails within the park boundary.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Visitor Centers

The National Park Service (NPS) manages a wide variety of buildings and structures across the United States, each designed to support the preservation of national parks, historical sites, and natural landmarks, while also serving the public. These buildings include visitor centers, historic sites, administrative offices, and specialized structures built for specific purposes, such as ranger stations and maintenance facilities.

ArcGIS shapefile depicting point locations of automobile campgrounds in the Ross Lake National Recreation Area of the North Cascades National Park Service Complex. Site features in campgrounds of the North Cascades National Park Service Complex: restrooms, walk-in campsites, water sources (in some of them), bear boxes (Hozomeen), picnic shelters, recycle stations and dumping stations, amphitheaters, fish cleaning station (Colonial Creek)

THESE POINTS of open air assembly and seating in parks range from the minor, represented by the campfire circle, sometimes termed a lecture circle or council ring, to the large and elaborate in the form of outdoor theater or amphitheater. The elementary expressions are to be found in many parks, while the more extensive developments are apt to occur in large parks appealing to more than local interest, or in metropolitan parks where local or civic interest is well defined. The locating of the intimate circle or ring is largely a matter of proximity to use-demand, as represented by a cabin or camp group, or other such point of concentration within the park. A small plot preferably generally level, but failing that, not too rugged or precipitous, is the only topographic requirement. The larger amphitheater, in its several varying manifestations, should on the other hand be located in a natural bowl wherever possible. Unless existing contours truly invite such development, a remoulding of them to create a natural effect is apt to require an amount of work disproportionate to the gain. If anything short of accomplishment of complete naturalness results from a remoulding of topography in creation of an amphitheater, the park area is burdened with a disfiguring scar that should be rigidly avoided.The minor campfire circle or ring is merely the provision of seating around the community campfire, where the evening hours may be passed with song and story in the warmth of good comradeship and the friendly fire. The campfire is the sole physical essential of this foregathering place in the open. It is often given a fixity of location by the building of seats around it, particularly if conditions of climate or insect life make sitting on the ground unadvisable. Such seating may be merely logs or some more sophisticated adaptation of them, or again may be boulders or masonry construction, where stone is the more abundant native material. But there are no fixed principles, no traditions to be pressed, beyond admonishing an attention to the claims of the immediate natural environment.The principles applicable to the creation of amphitheaters or outdoor theaters are numerous. Probably paramount are the considerations of sight lines and acoustics, here quite as important as for the enclosed auditorium. Many will at first thought regard acoustics as not of the problem, but these should not fail to appreciate that hills and mountains, water surfaces, woods and forests, deflect and echo sound in accordance with their own laws, no less than do man-made surroundings, and call for just as much study and advance consideration.It is important that the stage be to the east or north, so that the audience will not face the afternoon sun. A distant view as background for the stage platform is greatly to be desired, or better still a picturesque cliff as at Pine Mountain, in Kentucky. If these do not exist, a background of trees should be sought. The amphitheater should be encircled by trees, to screen it from view and provide all possible shade for the audience, and to act as barrier against the disturbing noises of other park activities.The outdoor stage is often merely a platform, the distant view or a near-by stand of trees serving as a backdrop. If these are lacking, or some required use of the stage demands it, an artificial background of rustic construction, or of planting, or a combination of the two is created. When the showing of motion pictures is an activity, the extent of the structural background will be dictated by the size of the picture screen. The screen should be removable in winter, should be recessed for some measure of protection, and supplemented with dark canvas curtains to be drawn over it when pictures are not being shown. Where dramatic entertainment is to be offered, some provision of dressing room space is necessary. The stage of the amphitheater, being the focal point, must be outstandingly representative of park character. No