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Road Work To Repair Slide Along Newfound Gap Road In Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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Work is scheduled to begin January 5 to stabilize this slide along the Newfound Gap Road in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. NPS photo.

Repair work is scheduled to begin next week on a slide along Newfound Gap Road in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which early this year saw a larger slide take out a section of the road.

The recent slide was found about a mile south of the Newfound Gap parking area south of the Deep Creek Trailhead. Work to stabilize the area is set to begin Monday, January 5, and run into mid-May.

Park staff and Federal Highway Administration engineers recently documented the slide approximately 50 feet below the road corridor. The repairs will involve reinforcing the slope to stabilize the road embankment and to prevent slope failure or erosion along the road shoulder. The restoration work will include retaining wall construction, road reconstruction, stone masonry guardwall construction, guardrail placement, shoulder reconditioning, installation of culverts and inlets, and site restoration.

Traffic lanes will be temporarily shifted onto the road shoulder throughout the duration of the project to maintain two-way traffic; however, single lane closures will be required intermittently primarily during the construction of the temporary lane. The parking area adjacent to this slide area will be closed, but the small pulloff for the Deep Creek trailhead will remain open.

Phillips and Jordan, Inc. was awarded the contract for the project through a competitive bid process. The primary geotechnical subcontractor is Goettle, Inc. Contractors are authorized to conduct operations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

It was nearly a year ago when a larger slide took out an estimated 300-foot section of road and ran 1,000 feet down slope, encompassing roughly 90,000 cubic yards of material. That slide took roughly three months to repair so the Newfound Gap Road, the only road that bisects the park, could reopen.

For more information about road conditions, please visit the park’s website at www.nps.gov/grsm and or call the park’s Road and Weather Information Line at 865-436-1200.

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