Saturday, March 08, 2008

Weather related road closures in the Great Smoky Mountains national park

The national park service still has roads closed in the Great Smoky Mountains national park due to winter conditions some of which will take days to reopen.

While most roads in the Smoky Mountains are open in North Carolina, Newfound Gap Road (US 441) which connects Cherokee NC to Gatlinburg TN is now closed to all traffic.

The following roads are also closed in the national park: The Roaring Fork Nature trail in Gatlinburg, and in the Cades Cove area the following unimproved roads are closed Parsons Branch Road, Forge Creek Road and Sparks Lane.

Cold weather is predicted to continue throughout the day in the Smoky Mountains - it's snowing now in areas in Bryson City North Carolina, it may take until tomorrow warming weather for some roads to be opened back up. For roads such as Forge Creek which is closed due to muddy conditions it may take a few days until all roads will be reopened.

The national park service is advising drivers that the Spur connecting Pigeon Forge with Gatlinburg Tennessee still has active ongoing construction and that drivers must obey posted speed limits as there have been numerous accidents in the construction zones.

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