Tag Archives: National

Part of road work to Great Smoky Mountains National Park nearly done

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SEVIERVILLE, TENN. — Part of the road work leading from Interstate 40 into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is about done after nearly 2 1/2 years.

State transportation officials in Knoxville said Tuesday that phase 1 of the work on state Route 66 will be finished by the deadline Nov. 30. Work remaining is final pavement markings and minor sidewalk repair.

A third lane has just been opened to traffic, both northbound and southbound.

Still in progress is widening another part of the road beginning at the I-40 exit. It is on schedule to be done by Nov. 30, 2012.

The highway leads to the resort towns of Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg and then to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. More than 9 million people visit the park annually.

Visits to Great Smoky Mountains National Park down by more than half-million from 2010

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GATLINBURG, Tenn. — Visits to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park fell 9.5 percent in October from the same month in 2010 and year-to-date visits are off more than a half-million.

The National Park Service said there were 1,133,520 visitors last month, compared with 1,252,357 in October 2010. October is one of the stronger months for park visitation because tourists come to see the autumn foliage.

All entrances to the park showed declines last month.

For the first 10 months of 2011, there were 7,931,484 visitors to the 500,000-acre park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border. That was 6.7 percent fewer than at the same time last year — a drop of 568,330 people.

The Smokies remains the most-visited national park.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Great Smokies Mountains National Park winter schedule

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As cold weather settles in, many facilities in Great Smoky Mountains National Park will either shut down or be put on an abbreviated schedule until spring rolls around.

n Visitor Centers: Through November the Sugarlands Visitor Center and the Oconaluftee Visitor Center will open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Cades Cove Visitor Center will be opened from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The visitor center hours for other winter months are posted on the park’s website — www.nps.gov/grsm.

n Roads: Balsam Mountain and Heintooga roads closed Nov. 1, and the two-way segment of the Roundbottom/Straight Fork Road just outside Cherokee will close Nov. 15.

Parson Branch and Rich Mountain roads will close Nov. 21 and the Clingmans Dome and Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail roads will close Dec. 1.

During the winter months the Newfound Gap Road (U.S. 441) and Little River Road will remain open except for temporary weather closures. The Gatlinburg Bypass, Cades Cove Loop Road, Cosby Road, Greenbrier Road, Upper Tremont, Forge Creek, Lakeview Drive and Foothills Parkway will open and close as weather dictates.

For more information on winter weather road conditions contact the park at 865-436-1200 or go online at www.twitter.com/smokiesroadsnps. Those wishing to be notified of winter closures of the Newfound Gap, Little River Road, Laurel Creek Road, and Cades Cove Loop Road can receive cellphone text alerts by texting “follow smokiesroadsnps to 40404.”

n Lodging: Mt. LeConte Lodge will close for the season on Nov. 23.

n Camping: Cades Cove and Smokemont campgrounds will remain open all winter. As of Nov. 1 they are on a self-registration basis with a reduced number of available sites. Elkmont Campground will remain open through Thanksgiving weekend and will close Dec. 1.

Balsam Mountain campground is already closed for the season. The six remaining self-registration campgrounds at Cosby, Cataloochee, Deep Creek, Big Creek, Look Rock and Abrams Creek closed Nov. 1.

n Cades Cove Campground Store: The store will close on Thanksgiving Day and will close for the winter on Dec. 1. Vending machines will remain in service.

n Picnicking: Seven picnic areas will stay open in the winter: Chimneys, Cades Cove, Cosby, Greenbrier, Metcalf Bottoms, Big Creek and Deep Creek. Picnic pavilions at Cosby, Greenbrier and Deep Creek will be open during the winter and can be reserved at www.recreation.gov. Twin Creeks, Collins Creek, and Metcalf Bottoms picnic pavilions closed Nov. 1.

n Horseback Stables: Smokemont Riding Stable closed on Nov. 1. Sugarlands Riding Stable and Smoky Mountain Riding Stable will close Nov. 28. Cades Cove Riding Stable is scheduled to close on Dec. 1.

n Horse Camps: All five horse camps — Round Bottom, Tow String, Cataloochee, Big Creek and Anthony Creek — are scheduled to close on Nov. 14.

Plan to manage elk population in Great Smoky National Park approved

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Plan to manage elk population in Great Smoky National Park approved

Park superintendent Dale Ditmanson announced the approval of a proposed plan for managing a permanent herd of elk in the Park. The approved plan, signed on Oct.

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Two park partners receive national recognition

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Jim Hart

Photo by Handout

Jim Hart

Terry Maddox

Terry Maddox

Two directors of two nonprofit organizations have been nationally recognized for their outstanding support of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The U.S. Department of Interior recently presented Terry Maddox, executive director of the Great Smoky Mountains Association, and Jim Hart, president of Friends of the Smokies, with its Citizen’s Award for Exceptional Service.

The Great Smoky Mountains Association supports the park through the sale of interpretive media at park bookstores and through the wholesale marketing of these materials outside the park. Since 1990 the association has grown from a small book retailer to a major author and publisher of award-winning field guides, maps, videos, and web-based materials.

Under Maddox’s 20-year leadership, the organization’s annual support to the Smokies has grown from $ 350,000 to more than $ 1.8 million. Most recently, the organization provided $ 3 million to build the new Oconaluftee Visitor Center and Cultural Museum at the North Carolina entrance to the park.

The award recognized the Friends of the Smokies fundraising that has helped the park treat over 5,000 acres of hemlocks threatened by the hemlock woolly adelgid and for its financial support of the Parks As Classroom program that reaches 10,000 K-8 students and over 50 high school and college age interns.

During Hart’s tenure as president, the Friends group increased its annual donations to the Smokies from $ 1.8 million to more than $ 3.5 million. The group raised $ 500,000 to design and furnish the Oconaluftee Visitor Center.

More recently, the Friends group created a “Trails Forever” endowment valued at almost $ 4 million to fix park trails in dire need of repair and provide long-term funding for routine trail maintenance.

Teen Dies At Great Smoky National Park

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MARYVILLE, Tenn.- A 17-year-old has drowned in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The teenager was from Florida, and died Saturday playing along the Little River in Blount County.

She was swept over a 15-foot water fall after wading in ankle deep water. Park investigators say she got trapped in chest-deep water at a crevice at the bottom of the falls, but was held under by the force.

Signs in the area do warn about being in the water because of its strong current.

 

 

Girl dies in swimming hole in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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Man drowns in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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TOWNSEND (WATE) - A Texas man drowned while tubing Monday morning in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The victim is Dick Chijioke, 34, from Plano, Texas.

Chijioke was using a rental tube in the Little River with his family at the “Wye,” the junction of the Little River and the Middle Prong near the Townsend entrance to the park.

Officials say Chijioke’s tube tipped and he fell into a 12-foot deep pool of water. Eyewitnesses said he failed to resurface after he slipped out of the tube.

Several people from his group, along with other visitors, tried to find Chijioke underwater before  emergency personnel arrived. They got the call at 11:22 a.m. and found Chijioke at 12:26 p.m.

Rural/lMetro paramedics tried to resuscitate Chijioke on the way to Blount Memorial Hospital, but he was pronounced dead by hospital officials at 1:05 p.m.

The National Park Service called the Townsend Volunteer Fire Department to the scene. The Blount County Sheriff’s Office also sent its Special Operation Response Team, divers and a chaplain for the family.

Fewer Great Smoky Mountains National Park visitors in June

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GATLINBURG, TENN. — June was another down month for visits to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The National Park Service says the number of visitors to the 500,000-acre park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border fell 17.6 percent from June 2010. While traffic at all entrances was down, visitors coming in through the 13 outlying entrances fell 31.1 percent.

Statistics show visits in the first half of 2011 were down 11.9 percent — about 480,000 people.

Camping in the family campgrounds is off 6.8 percent year to date.

The park’s highest visitation was in 1999, when nearly 10,300,000 visits were recorded.