Cades Cove closes due to winter storm in the Great Smoky Mountains national park.

First Newfound Gap Road (US 441) in the Great Smoky Mountains national park closed, now Laurel Creek Road is closed just past Tremont shutting off all access to Cades Cove, which may remain closed for much of the weekend.

Cherokee Orchard Road by the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail just outside the city of Gatlinburg has been closed below the Noah Bud Ogle cabin at the gate by the Twin Creek Science Center.

Continuing accumulation may close the rest of the parks through roads such as Little River Road and the 2 Foothills Parkways.

Current Road Closures and Openings in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Where will the $64 million dollars given to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park go?

The $64,006,150 that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will receive through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will be a great help to the infrastructure of the park and is expected to create as many as 1,500 jobs mostly in the private sector as employees of a variety of contractors who will be hired to fix up the park.

So where is all this money going that must be either spent or obligated by September 30, 2010? Well the majority of this federal stimulus money about $59 million dollars is going to be used on park roadways and the balance will be spent on trail maintenance, building and facility improvements.

First of all not a cent will be used to repave the Cades Cove 11 mile loop road. That Money has been already allocated for the Cades Cove repaving work that will start early next year.

$34 million is to be spent to finish the 1,200 foot incomplete section known as the missing link of the Foothills Parkway west which will include an 800 foot-long bridge - the longest single structure to be constructed from Wears Valley Road US321 to Walland.

The next approximately $25 million will be spent to repave and rehabilitate 4 roads in the park:

• 9 miles of the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail and Cherokee Orchard Road near Gatlinburg.
• All 7 miles of Clingmans Dome Road from Newfound Gap Road US 441 to the Clingmans Dome parking area.
• The Cosby Campgrounds in Cocke County Tennessee
• The Sinks parking area on Little River Road between Wears Cove Road in Metcalf Bottoms picnic area and the Townsend Wye in Tennessee.

$4 million of the stimulus money given to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will be spent on long overdue handicapped accessibility public restrooms in campgrounds and picnic areas.

$1.2 million will be used in the Great Smoky Mountains national park to hire trail workers to make improvements to:

• 22 miles of eroded horse trails in Tennessee
• 10.4 miles of trails in North Carolina
• 61 historic cemeteries in North Carolina

Lastly $259,000 will be spent to paint and reroof numerous buildings throughout the Great Smoky Mountains National park.

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.

Roads Open: The Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Due to potential hazardous condition on some of the roads in the Great Smoky Mountains national park, some of the roads within the park closed for the winter season. These roads will start opening as of this Friday March 9th. Please note some of these roads in the National park will be opening as late as June.

The Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail near Gatlinburg Tennessee, Rich Mountain road which runs from Cades Cove to Townsend TN and Little Greenbrier between Metcalf Bottoms and the Wear Valley park entrance as well as Straight Fork/Round Bottom will all be opening March 9th.

The road leading up to Clingmans Dome is set to open on April 1. This is a great opportunity now to park your car at Newfound Gap and hike the 7 miles up to the top on the paved road. Wonderful vistas await you and in weeks this area will see considerable traffic when it opens.

May 11th will see both the Heintooga Ridge and the Balsam Mountain Roads opening to vehicles.

Parson Branch Road in the tail end of Cades Cove has been closed since 2003 as it sustained considerable flood damage. When it opens in mid June of this year you will be able to drive from Cades Cove all the way to North Carolina and end up on US 129 - right in the heart of the Tail of the Dragon.