As\u00a0spring approaches, Great Smoky Mountains National Park reminds visitors of group size limits during the popular wildflower season at Whiteoak Sink. Individuals and small groups of eight or fewer people may access the Whiteoak Sink area throughout the wildflower season from\u00a0April 1 through May\u00a03.<\/p>\n\n
Whiteoak Sink is a sensitive area that hosts many rare plants. Park managers limit group size to protect sensitive wildflower species from trampling. Overuse of the area causes impacts like damage to plants and soil compaction when large groups crowd around plants\u00a0off trail\u00a0to take photos or closely view flowers. Parking is limited, so visitors should\u00a0plan ahead\u00a0and come prepared with alternative destinations in case they do not find parking available at Whiteoak Sink. Parking is not\u00a0permitted\u00a0on road shoulders.<\/p>\n\n
A team of volunteers on site will provide wildflower viewing information and collect monitoring data. Park managers have\u00a0monitored\u00a0sensitive wildflower species in the Whiteoak Sink area since 2016.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As\u00a0spring approaches, Great Smoky Mountains National Park reminds visitors of group size limits during the popular wildflower season at Whiteoak Sink. Individuals and small groups of eight or fewer people may access the Whiteoak Sink area throughout the wildflower season from\u00a0April 1 through May\u00a03. Whiteoak Sink is a sensitive area that hosts many rare plants. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-21","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smokymountainnews-demo-skills.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smokymountainnews-demo-skills.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smokymountainnews-demo-skills.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smokymountainnews-demo-skills.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/smokymountainnews-demo-skills.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smokymountainnews-demo-skills.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smokymountainnews-demo-skills.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smokymountainnews-demo-skills.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smokymountainnews-demo-skills.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}