Virtually Every Road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is Closed

First it was flooding that closed many key roads in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, now a winter storm dumped enough snow to create another headache, virtually every road is closed due to snow and ice including the Foothills Parkway West and East and the Gatlinburg Bypass connecting the Sugarlands to the Spur.

Crews are working on plowing and sanding roads right now. They will also be cleaning up any of the additional trees, branches and roads that may have fallen into the roadways. When the melting starts, even more debris could fall into the roadway making driving treacherous.

With so much water, there have been landslides, one of which washed out a 200 foot section of roadway, and rock slides and trees that may still be in danger of falling so when the park access opens up, use extreme caution when hiking as some of these dangers may not be immediately apparent.

Links: Great Smoky Mountain national park road conditions

Rockslide closes portion of Little River Road in the Great Smoky Mountains national park

Another rockslide in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park along Little River Road forced the park service to close the section of roadway to all traffic between Metcalf Bottoms and the Townsend Wye.

Fortunately, the Sinks area is already closed to all traffic and pedestrian due to construction so no popular areas are directly affected by the closure.

This winter there have been numerous rockslides along the Gatlinburg Pigeon Forge Spur and Little River Road. While some of these rockslides have taken weeks to remove excess debris and complete slope stabilization, initial reports on this slide state that Little River Road will be open to traffic very quickly.

Rockslide Near Great Smoky Mountains National Park Keeps Part of Spur Closed a Month or More

This Monday a significant rockslide fell onto the southbound lanes of the Spur section of the Foothills Parkway (US 441) a few hundred yards south of traffic light 10 in Pigeon Forge on the way to Gatlinburg Tennessee and experts now predict that the cleanup and stabilization of the slope could potentially take at least a month.

The rockslide between Gatlinburg and Pigeon thankfully did not cause any injuries and occurred in the off-season so the traffic affected by the detour around the rockslide is minimal right now, but will affect the tourism peak that occurs on and around Valentines Day.

Yesterday morning the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) had geotechnical engineers inspect the rockslide and their determination is that the wall or rock, earth and vegetation is still very unstable and before the roadway can be reopened to traffic, significant stabilization effort is required.

Presently TDOT will need to obtain an emergency contract to stabilize this section of the mountainside along the Spur and once the work is started will be able to offer a more accurate time in which this project can be completed.

Since the rockslide cleanup and stabilization along the spur will take so long, representatives from the Great Smoky Mountains national park and TDOT are working together to improve the traffic flow on the 1 mile detour where northbound traffic is reduced to 1 lane and southbound traffic uses 1 lane flowing south.

According to Great Smoky Mountains National Park Facility Management Chief Alan Sumeriski stated, "We are working with TDOT to improve the configuration of temporary traffic barriers and the signage to help keep traffic flowing as smoothly as possible and to maximize public safety."

He went on to say "We will also be adding numerous signs in the detour area to guide residents and visitors to each of the side roads that are accessed off the Spur."

Though park rangers patrol the entire length of the Spur, the State of Tennessee owns the portion where the rockslide took place, so TDOT has sole responsibility for repairs of the slide itself.

While being restriped today there will be traffic delays along the Spur.