Great Smokies NP and more People

The park numbers are in for 2011...and more people continue to visit! Check these numbers and how many just drove around the cove and over the gap? Charge 'em a buck per car!!
December 2011 traffic into Great Smoky Mountains National Park jumped by 37.7% over December 2010. This strong visitation drove year-to-date Park visitation over 9 million by a scant 8,831 visitors. Traffic for the year in 2011 totaled 9,008,831 compared with 9,463,538 for 2010 - a decline of 4.8% for the year.
In December 2011 Park entries were 471,603 compared with 342,512 in December 2010. The strong December 2011 count was a result of a combination of unusually warm winter weather in 2011 and especially harsh winter weather in December 2010.
All three of the Park's main entrances saw substantial jumps in December 2011 visitation:
Gatlinburg was up 46.1%
Townsend was up 24.1%
Cherokee was up 75.1%

The 13 outlying entrances showed an 11.8% jump over 2010 traffic. Visits to the 397 National Park Service sites nation-wide declined by 1.68% in 2011. Grand Canyon National Park, the second most visited National Park behind the Smokies, dropped by 3.3% last year with a total of 4.2 million visits. Yellowstone travel was off by 6.8% with 3.4 million.

(Source: Bob Miller, GSMNP)