October 27, 2009, 2:29 pm
The hills will be alive with the sound of road graders and asphalt trucks next spring and summer in the
Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The country's most-visited national park is
planning more than $44 million in major improvements to 56 miles of
park roads, a campground and a popular trailhead parking area.
The repaving projects include the road to the
Smokies' highest peak at 6,643-foot Clingmans Dome and the meandering
11-mile loop around scenic Cades Cove.
Funding comes from a combination of new economic stimulus money and previously authorized Federal Lands Highway Program support.
"When the projects are finished our road system
will be in the best shape it has been in for decades and our visitors
will find their travel safer as well as more pleasurable," Smokies
Superintendent Dale Ditmanson said in a statement Monday.
The 520,000-acre park, which straddles the Tennessee-North Carolina state line, attracts more than 9 million visitors a year.
To minimize the impact on traffic, Ditmanson
said, "We have worked very hard to minimize this inconvenience through
scheduling as much work as possible between February and Memorial Day."
The Clingmans Dome road will be closed from Feb. 15 to May 28, then intermittently opened until June 18.
The Cades Cove road will be closed from March 1
to May 21, although its campground, picnic area, store and horse
stables will remain accessible.
The one-way Roaring Fork motor trail near
Gatlinburg will be closed from Feb. 1 to May 28, while the two-way
portion of the connected Cherokee Orchard Road will be managed as a
single lane during that time.
A major expansion of the 20-car parking lot and
viewing area at the Sinks swimming area and Meigs Creek trailhead has
been scheduled between November and late May.
Other work is planned next spring and summer on
the Foothills Parkway in Blount County and on Newfound Gap Road between
Gatlinburg and Cherokee, N.C.
