Submitted by: Linda Helton & Nicky Ozbek
Senior Passes to our national parks are available for those 62 years and older for $10.00 until August 27, 2017. After this date the price jumps to $85.00. If you are eligible you might want to get your pass now! You can go online for an additional processing fee of $10.00. Online purchases take as much as 9 weeks to process. Or, you can go in person to Signal Point Park on Lookout Mountain to purchase one. Call (706) 866-9241-before you go, as there is only one ranger authorized to sell the Senior Pass and she might be off the day you decide to go.
FYI: “Twenty-seven states have National Parks, as do the territories of American Samoa and the United States Virgin Islands. California has the most (nine), followed by Alaska (eight), Utah (five), and Colorado (four). The largest National Park is Wrangell–St. Elias in Alaska: at over 8 million acres (32,375 km2), it is larger than each of the nine smallest states. The next three largest parks are also in Alaska. The smallest park is Hot Springs, Arkansas, at less than 6 thousand acres (24 km2). The total area protected by National Parks is approximately 52.2 million acres (211,000 km2), for an average of 885 thousand acres (3,580 km2) but a median of only 236 thousand acres (960 km2) at Mount Rainier, the 30th largest park.[4] The most-visited National Park is Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee, with over 11.3 million visitors in 2016, followed by Arizona’s Grand Canyon, with nearly 6 million. In contrast, only 10,047 people visited the remote Gates of the Arctic in Alaska in the same year.”