"The terrain is choked with rhododendron and dog hobble, ground cover that makes it easy to get lost and hard to be found. There are eight hundred and forty-eight miles of trail, and countless manways, which masquerade as trails. The many waterfalls are fed by rain on par with that of the Pacific Northwest. The rivers rise and boil with astonishing speed. There's little to no cell service."
"Every year, the park logs more than twelve million visits, some of which go poorly. From the annals of misadventure and bad luck: A fifteen-year-old boy jumped between rocks at a scenic overlook and fell five hundred feet. Lightning struck near where a man lay reading in his tent; the charge "welded" him to the ground for at least ten seconds. A cyclist hit a deer and flew over the handlebars."
America's busiest national park spans 522,427 acres across the North Carolina–Tennessee border and logs more than twelve million visits annually. The terrain is choked with rhododendron and dog hobble, with eight hundred and forty-eight miles of trail and countless misleading manways. Heavy rainfall feeds numerous waterfalls and causes rivers to rise and boil rapidly, while there is little to no cell service. Frequent emergencies include falls, lightning strikes, collisions with wildlife, caving incidents, lost children, exposure, insect attacks, and river entrapments. An auxiliary team of elite outdoorsmen responds to rescue calls when hikes, climbs, or rafting adventures go wrong.
Read at The New Yorker
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