Mule team celebrates 50 years of contribution in Smoky Mountains

There’s Tug, the class clown who’s never met a stranger; Ron, the shy guy with a warm heart; Jeb, backbone of the team, and a whole cast of other quirky yet hardworking characters.

“That's the first thing you do,” Gibson said. “Learn your mules.”

Gibson is the park’s animal caretaker, and his co-workers are mainly of the four-legged variety. Serving alongside the program’s three human employees are 12 mules and six horses, and they all work together to haul tens of thousands of pounds of materials and equipment through the 816-square-mile park’s extensive backcountry each year.

Mules and rules

The federal Wilderness Act of 1964 created a system of protected lands to be “unimpaired for future use and enjoyment of wilderness.” In 1974, much of the Smokies backcountry was proposed for wilderness designation. The park now manages the land according to rules to preserve its wilderness characteristics. The rules prohibit the use of motor vehicles and motorized equipment in the backcountry.

In the park’s early decades, employees “could get a Jeep and drive up Bradley Fork or Bote Mountain or Twentymile and go all the way to the top of the ridge where the Appalachian Trail runs,” Gibson said. Before the park was created in 1934, the land was owned mainly by timber companies and homesteading families: there were roads everywhere. But after the proposed wilderness designation, the park could no longer use motor vehicles in the backcountry.

Enter Frank Hyatt, the facility manager for the park’s south district at the time.

“Frank was raised here, close to Bryson City, and he grew up on a farm where they used horses and mules,” Gibson said at an April 30 gathering of 50-plus National Park Service employees and partners to celebrate the mule team’s golden jubilee at Towstring Barn. “He also had close relations with a lot of people that used to log this country with the lumber companies. They would take oxen, mules, and horses, and pull the logs down before they could be loaded on rail cars and trucked out of the Smokies. So he knew the mules were the answer.”

It took some time for Hyatt’s superiors to come around to the idea of relying on these donkey–horse hybrids, but eventually he got the go-ahead to hire someone to lead the program. He knew just who to ask: a 25-year-old Swain County horse trader named Sonny Freshour.

Freshour joined the park service in 1976 and remained at the helm of the pack program until his retirement in 2010. The larger-than-life figure was known for his humor, storytelling and relentless advocacy on behalf of his mules.

Built on trust

Gibson started working for the park in 2003 as a trail crew member, but his affinity for animals quickly drew him to the pack mule program. He grew up on a small farm that kept horses and cattle, and prior to his NPS career he spent 10 years working for the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, four years of that as a K-9 officer handling a German shepherd. When Freshour retired, Gibson stepped into the leadership role.

During his tenure, the mule team packed more than 700,000 pounds into the backcountry; Gibson says he’ll be ready to retire when the number hits 1 million.

“They have to learn to trust you," he said, "and it's amazing what they can do.”

Though the shift from motors to mules caused consternation at first, a 1976 Associated Press story on the change reported that things went better than some expected. The AP quoted park employee Morris Woodard, whose job involved getting supplies to crews in remote areas, as saying, “Someone else will have to tell you how things are working out over-all, but, as far as I am concerned, the whole thing's a complete success.”

Support from park partner Friends of the Smokies was an important part of that success. The nonprofit purchased multiple mules for the program, raising even more money for the park by auctioning off naming rights for the animals it provides. The most recent such auction in 2024 resulted in the park’s newest mule being named Jake in honor of Jake Ogle, vice chair of the Friends board.

Heavy duty

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the only park on the East Coast with a mule team, and the only national park anywhere in the United States that shoes its animals in-house. Its mules are also the largest of any pack program in the National Park Service, weighing in at about 1,250 pounds apiece. Each animal can carry 20% of its body weight—more than 200 pounds—over miles of rough and rugged terrain.

A mule’s tour of duty typically lasts about as long as its shoe — about six weeks. Once the shoes wear out, the team gets turned out to pasture for a month and a half of easy life. Meanwhile, another string of six is rested and ready to work. The park typically acquires its mules at about age 5 and retire them at age 20.

The mule team is most frequently called upon to help with trail construction. It would be next to impossible for humans to haul the required quantities of heavy materials like black locust logs, which are used to build steps and footbridges, into remote areas. The mules can do it with no problem, typically moving up the trail at about three miles per hour. Most human hikers move at only about two miles per hour, even when unburdened by a heavy pack.

“Not only do they work on the almost 900 miles of trails here in the park, they also provide support for some of our historic structures that are in the backcountry,” Chief of Facilities Barbara Hatcher said during the celebration. “They take hazard trees out of the backcountry. They also provide service for the fisheries program, the vegetation management program, the backcountry office program with bear cables, and they also provide mulch for some of the privies that are in some of the shelters on the AT and in other areas of the park.”

Once the team arrives at the trailhead, Gibson works with one of his human colleagues to lead the mules from the trailer and distribute the load, making sure each animal’s burden is balanced and comfortable. The mules move single-file with horse-mounted humans at the front and rear.

At their golden jubilee, the mules got an original song in their honor from Atlanta singer-songwriter Doug Peters and a horseshoe-shaped cake of apples, oats, carrots and flaxseed.

“In 50 years, let’s celebrate again,” Gibson said. “If I’m alive, I’ll be here.”

Towstring Barn is not a public area of the park, and is not open to visitors.