Rock Slide on Little River Rd. may be cleared by Sunday evening

This is a hot topic on the blog, so I’ll try to keep updated daily on the latest from the Little River Rd. rockslide.  The road is closed right now, and it looks like crews are hoping to get the road back open by Sunday evening. According to the article below, it was discovered at around 2AM Thursday morning.  Little River Rd. is the road to Cades Cove (or Townsend) from Gatlinburg in the park.  If you are leaving the Sugarlands Visitor Center parking lot, Little River is the road you would turn right to head down.  We drove down that road a couple of weeks ago.  This is also the way to get to Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont.  That’s where we were headed. 

Fortunately, Cades Cove is closed while they rebuild the road there, so I would imagine fewer people would need Little River Rd. than usual anyhow.  Hopefully it will be open Sunday evening.

I’ll update this post as I get new info… feel free to subscribe to this blog, so the updates will be sent to your automatically:)

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/mar/19/crew-cleaning-rock-slide-little-river-road-may-reo/

This rock slide is the 7th rock slide in the last 5 months in the Smokies…

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/mar/20/7-occur-in-last-5-months/

Raymond

**This blog post brought to you by www.SmokyMountainTower.com.  One of the best views of Mount LeConte and Ober Gatlinburg are seen from the deck of The Smoky Mountain Tower.  You can see photos on the website.  Check it out for your next visit to the Smokies! BTW, the location is PERFECT.  Right between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.  You can go to either city, OR the park, without having to drive through the others.***

ANOTHER NEW Rock Slide in the Smokies… this time, on Little River Rd. on the way to Cades Cove

This is becoming an all too common report.  Yet ANOTHER rock slide in the Smokies.  This one includes SUV-SIZED boulders.  It happened on Little River Rd.  That’s the road to Cades Cove in the park.  I’ve been wondering why there have been so many rock slides, and the first news report below explains why.  If you read about the geology of the park, you understand that one reason the Smokies is a much smoother mountain range than other mountain ranges, like the younger mountains out west, is that over time rocks fall down the mountains, and into the valleys. 

Well, the recent rains, coupled with the colder weather/snow means the rock has cracked up a bit.  Small fractures get water in them that expands as the water freezes.  That then expands the crack.  The process continues until the rock breaks off.  That explains how huge boulders end up in the rivers of the Smokies. 

Due to the size/location of the slide, there is no time-frame yet to have the road cleared/back open.  I’ll post updates here as I find them.  Check out more at the links below…

http://www.volunteertv.com/news/headlines/88383452.html?ref=452

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/mar/18/new-rockslide-shuts-down-road/

***This blog post brought to you by www.SmokyMountainTower.com.  That’s where I wish I were with my wife/girls right this minute.  Even though we’ve been gone less than a week, that’s about a week too long for me:)  Check out the website, and you’ll see why we LOVE “The Smoky Mountain Tower.” And I hope the owners, Dave and Phyllis, don’t mind us referring to the “tower” when we’re talking about it as “Our Mountain Home.”***

Tremont renovations planned… officials want your input about future plans.

Officials want your input on what to do with the facilities at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont.  The park needs your comments by April 15th.  It looks like they want to renovate/rebuild the dorm building at Tremont.  We visited Tremont for the first time during our trip last week.  It looks like a great place to go for education.  I’d love to have spent time there at camp as a kid.  Hopefully my girls can go to camp there in the future.  You can learn more about the plans at the link below…

http://www.thedailytimes.com/article/20100317/NEWS/303179997

Raymond

**This blog post brought to you by www.SmokyMountainTower.com.  Our favorite place to stay in the Smokies is the Smoky Mountain Tower.  Check out the views! On our most recent trip (this month,) we decided to buy a cabin in the Smokies in the next few years. We can only hope we can buy a place as nice as www.SmokyMountainTower.com**

Back in business…

I took a break from the blog for the last month or so, due to other issues that have been taking a good deal of time.  Thanks for continuing to visit the site.  I’m going to get back to regular updates now.  We just came back from our March trip to the Smokies.  I’ll be posting lots of photos shortly.  I also filmed a number of videos from the park.  I’ll post those in the next couple of weeks. 

Raymond

DAY-1 Ski Trip in Maggie Valley…

Alright, we are finally back in the Smokies! We arrived at about 4AM (extremely late arrival is a long story) this morning at A Holiday Motel (www.holidaymotel.net) in Maggie Valley.  We slept for about 6 hours before getting out of the room at around 11AM this morning.  We were skiing at Cataloochee (www.cataloochee.com ) soon thereafter.  There was a snow storm moving into the area.  That’s good news, because that means lots of great powder. The bad news is, it snowed so hard, they had to close the slopes early.  We were planning to ski until they closed at 10PM, but they had to close at 4:30PM due to the extreme snow.  The snow is not a problem at the top of the mountain, but considering you have to drive back down the mountain, the snow-covered roads are the reason they had to close early.  We were just about the last people on the mountain before we left.

Now, keep in mind, on our way UP the mountain, just a few hours earlier, there were bits of snow on the sides of the road, but just a little white here and there.  As you can see by these photos we took on the way down the mountain, the entire area now looks like a winter wonderland.

Here’s a look at some fields on the way down the mountain.

Then, another of the cabins you see along the road down the mountain.

The Cataloochee folks tell us they expect lots of additional snow throughout tonight.  They plan to open at 8:30AM tomorrow, and will stay open until 10PM.  IF that happens, we plan to be there from open to close.  We’ll post more photos from tomorrow once we get back from the slopes.

Also, I wanted to let you know when we will be airing another “LIVE IN THE SMOKIES” episode of the GoSmoky.com Internet Talk Show.  I will be hosting a show on THIS Sunday morning from Maggie Valley.  I plan to have several guests on the show, including a representative from the N.C. Department of Transportation.  He spent several days last week at the site of the rock slide on I-40.  He’ll update us on the project. That “LIVE FROM THE SMOKIES” episode of the GoSmoky.com Internet Talk Show will take place this Sunday morning at 8:30AM.  I will post the show link here on the blog.  You can listen live, or listen to the show podcast later at the link.  Stay tuned!

-Raymond

***This GoSmoky.com trip to the Smokies is brought to you by www.holidaymotel.net and www.cataloochee.com.***

Quick housekeeping note… goal for 2010, and email updates

This is just a quick housekeeping note. 

I always like to let people know about goals.  That way we all know if we hit them.  I told you about our hitting 25K views on the blog so far since it started (began here on wordpress last Feb.) Anyhow, I want to see us do 150% of that for 2010.  So that makes the new goal 37,500 views by the end of 2010.  See ya on Dec. 31st! If you could let your friends know about the blog, I’d appreciate it. 

One more thing… I just added a feature that will automatically email you all of my latest blog posts.  Just click on the box on the right side of the front page of the blog to add yourself.  I know lots of people use RSS feeds of some sort, but I thought I’d add that just in case you want to stay on top of things without having to just click over here over and over (but feel free to visit as often as you’d like:)

-Raymond

***Just 2 days away, and I’ll be headed back to the Smokies.  This will be the 2nd ski trip up there with my brothers.  I’m hosting another online gosmoky.com internet talk show about the trip soon.  Stay tuned! The trip is brought to you by www.cataloochee.com (where we will ski) and www.holidaymotel.net (where we will stay.) ***

BREAKING: Rock Slide closes portion of Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge spur

BREAKING: Large rock slide has closed the spur road heading to Gatlinburg to Pigeon Forge.  Traffic is now being routed to the Pigeon Forge bound lanes.  That road is now divided into a 2 lane road, one lane headed in each direction. 

The good news… this is not June.  I’d imagine it would be best to avoid the spur if you can.  There are back-roads if you know where they are.  If you’re not aware of those, stop by a visitor center and ask for direction.  Quite frankly, they can be very confusing.  I know where several of them are, and I STILL get confused pretty often.  If they were simple to understand, I’d post them here. 

Find out more about the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge rock slide over at the yoursmokies blog… http://yoursmokies.blogspot.com/2010/01/rock-slide-closes-portion-of-foothills.html

-Raymond

***Stand by for many more photos/videos/blog posts/new episode of the GoSmoky.com Internet Talk Show soon.  It’s the 2nd annual GoSmoky.com Ski Trip, this weekend.  We’ll be updating right here on the blog.  Trip brought to you by the Cataloochee Ski Area ( www.cataloochee.com) and A Holiday Motel (www.holidaymotel.net) ***

NEW Rock slide in I-40 just miles away from the massive rock slide already being cleared on I-40

It looks like another, smaller rock slide has taken place just a few miles away from the site of the major rock slide that workers have been trying to clear up for the past several months.  The good news is, officials still estimate they will be able to get the road open again in March. 

While this one is smaller, it was still big enough to have a boulder the size of an SUV.  I’d hate to see that coming down the mountain at me.  This was also along the portion of I-40 that has been closed as they clear the larger rock slide, so it didn’t disturb anyone who may have been driving along I-40. 

Apparently the slide happened sometime late Friday or early Saturday morning.  A crew member discovered the slide Saturday morning.

I’m working on getting someone from the NC DOT to come on the GoSmoky.com Internet Talk Show to discuss the slide, as I’ve had LOTS of traffic on the blog on stories concerning the rock slide. More info at the link below on the most recent slide…

http://www.witn.com/stateregional/headlines/82549422.html

Raymond

***Another reminder, in just 3 days, I’ll be back in the Smokies with my 2nd annual ski trip to the Smokies.  I’ll be blogging and I’ll host a 2010 show on skiing in the Smokies in the coming week.  We’ll also post a number of photos and some videos from the trip.  The trip is being brought to you by www.cataloochee.com and www.holidaymotel.net.  We’ll be skiing Friday and Saturday, and possibly snow tubing Sunday at Cataloochee.  We’ll be staying at A Holiday Motel.  We’re looking forward to it, and I’m sure it will be another fantastic trip to the Smokies.  Check out http://www.holidaymotel.net/skipackages.htm for the $129/person THREE DAY/TWO NIGHT SKIING PACKAGE… Yes, you read correctly… $129!!! Keep in mind, www.holidaymotel.net is listed as the number 1 hotel in Maggie Valley on Trip Advisor Reviews***

New “Adventure Mountain” to debut in 2010 at Dollywood

I found this story at WBIR.com’s website http://www.wbir.com/life/programming/local/liveatfive/story.aspx?storyid=111281&catid=8 .  I know we heard something about this more than a year ago when we did the Dollywood episode of the GoSmoky.com Internet Radio Show… http://www.blogtalkradio.com/gosmoky/2008/10/24/dollywood, but now there is a date set for the opening of the new “adventure.”  The new “Adventure Mountain” debuts at Dollywood on March 26th.

While I haven’t had a chance to see this “ride” personally, it looks similar to the Adventure area at Stone Mountain in Georgia. Imagine being connected to a rope line in case you fall, then making your way around 2 acres of high-in-the-air fun including climbing and walking around things anyone who has even been a kid in a treehouse could only dream of.  It looks like lots of fun.  I only hope the lines aren’t as bad as the lines at the “Adventure” area at Stone Mountain.  Let me know what you think if you get a chance to try the new “Adventure Mountain.”

Raymond

***We’ll be headed back to the Smokies for another GoSmoky trip to the Smokies next week.  The 2nd annual “Ski Trip” is brought to you by www.cataloochee.com and www.holidaymotel.net.  Check out their sites for REALLY INEXPENSIVE ski/motel deals right now!***

Research projects currently under permit in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

I was browsing through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s website, and I found a page that lists all the current research projects permitting in the Smokies.  It’s categorized by area of research.  If you have a minute, take a look at some of the projects, from the climbing behavior of salamanders, to research into whether or not short-leaf pine trees in the area might help determine global climate issues.  While you don’t get to see the research, it is quite interesting to browse through and see what kind of research is taking place in the Smokies.  Take a look!

http://www.nps.gov/grsm/naturescience/dispatches-permits.htm

***Next Thursday night, I’ll be headed to Maggie Valley for our 2nd annual GoSmoky.com Ski Trip.  I’m planning another episode of the GoSmoky.com Internet Radio Show on the trip.  I’ll also be adding lots of photos and even some videos when I get back.  The trip is being made possible by Cataloochee Ski Area (www.cataloochee.com) and A Holiday Motel (www.holidaymotel.net.)   Stop by www.cataloochee.com to see a live webcam of the ski resort.  If you’re interested in a ski trip, A Holiday Motel and Cataloochee have a steal of a deal.  Lift tickets, rentals, lessons, a $15 gas card and 2 nights at A Holiday Motel for just $129/person.  Check it out! http://www.holidaymotel.net/skipackages.htm.***