Local hiker seriously injured in the Great Smoky Mountain national park.

What should have been and beautiful relaxing fall day in the Great Smoky Mountains national park yesterday turned tragic for 25 year old Jeremy Frye of Sevier County on the Grotto Falls Trillium Gap Trail.

Unfortunately Jeremy decided the he should climb up and around on rocks around the Grotto falls which has a large pool and boulders beneath it.

Park visitors are advised that climbing on waterfalls or rocks is dangerous and forbidden because of some many who have been injured or killed engaging in this behavior.

I can't imagine what was going through Jeremy Frye's head and the pain he felt with his head and back injuries he sustained from a more than 30 foot fall waiting what must have been more than an hour and a half to have rangers carry him out the Mile and a half to the Grotto Falls Trailhead and into an ambulance to be shuttled to Gatlinburg City Hall where he was air lifted to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville.

GSMNP Closes Trillium Gap to Grotto Falls Hiking Trail Again

Reports from the Great Smoky Mountains national park keep coming in of widespread damage throughout the national park from damage sustained from this weekend's major wind rains and snow storms.

There are trees and large limbs down on roads and hiking trails throughout the park so drivers, hikers and people on horseback have to use extreme caution. Heavy rains and falling trees have also cause some small landslides with trees, branches, rocks and mud blocking some trails.

On the very popular Trillium Gap Trail located in the Roaring Fork area of the national park near Gatlinburg Tennessee which takes hikers to the Grotto Falls, a stone retaining wall collapsed.

Officials in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to closed the Trillium Gap Trail from the trailhead on the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail to its junction with the Brushy Mountain Trail 2.7 miles away.

The officials are hoping that the repairs being made to the 25 foot damaged section located on extremely steep side slope just below Grotto Falls will be repaired this week so that the hiking trail can be reopened this Friday, April 20th. The repair work is requiring the use of jack hammers that will be used to install steel reinforcing rods into the bedrock.

This is one of the 2 popular trails to a waterfall in the Roaring fork area of the park and at only a 3 miles round trip is a more moderate hike than the Rainbow Falls trail which will remain open.