More rock could break at parkway slide

ASHEVILLE – Even though the Blue Ridge Parkway is a man-made sheet of asphalt, concrete, tunnels and bridges, it is still alive. And moving.

A rock slideSaturday afternoon just south of the Craggy Gardens Visitor Center brought down some 100-200 tons of switchblade-sharp, jagged, boulder-sized rock on one of the country's busiest national parks.

Contractors were expected to clear the rocks big enough to have buried cars on Wednesday and begin hauling away the debris the next day.

But they don’t know what they’ll find beneath the mound of rock face as far as damage to the road, and there is the possibility that vibrations from the hydraulic hammers breaking up the rock might bring down more of the mountainside still hanging above the fallen section.

Parkway remains closed at Craggy Gardens after rock slide

“This area between Asheville and Mount Mitchell is one of the most geologically unstable parts of the entire parkway,” said Mike Molling, parkway chief of maintenance and engineering.

“There is an obvious fracture where you can see some rock that didn’t come off, and we think at some time it will come off. There is no way to predict how or when it will come down.”

Late winter and early spring is when rock slides typically occur due to the thaw-freeze cycle, especially at high elevations such as Craggy Gardens, which sits at about 5,600 feet elevation.

The dual action was obvious Wednesday morning with dangling icicles and streams of water dripping down the rock face, patches of snow mingling with the fallen rock, strong sunshine with stinging wind and the cold air dipping much lower than in Asheville.

The parkway was open to traffic March 4 – not the winter norm – a sunny, warm day. Somehow drivers missed the moment when the rocks tumbled, and the parkway was quickly closed by ranger staff, said parkway spokeswoman Leesa Brandon. No one was injured. She said driving the two-lane, curvy mountain road always requires vigilance.

While the road repair is underway, the 13-mile section of parkway between Milepost 375.6 at Bull Gap to 367.6 at Craggy Gardens is completely closed. That means it is closed to all visitors, including motor vehicles, bicyclists, hikers and other pedestrians.

“People don’t always understand why the parkway is closed when they can’t see an obstruction behind the gates. Closing for our convenience is never the reason we close a road. They are closed for public safety,” Brandon said.

Depending on how much damage is discovered, the section could be closed for the next couple of weeks.

The 469-mile parkway stretches from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Great Smoky National Park in Cherokee.

With 15.2 million visitors in 2016, the parkway is neck and neck as the most visited national park with Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco, which had 15.6 million last year.

The Pisgah District of the parkway, which includes Asheville, is the busiest section due to its easy accessibility from U.S. 70, U.S. 74A and Hendersonville Road, and its many miles of hiking trails.

Construction on the parkway began in 1935.

“If the road were built to today’s standards, there would be more sloping, more angled away from the road,” Molling said.

This is not the first rock slide, and it won’t be the last. It is one of four major rock slides in the past eight years between Asheville and Mount Mitchell, he said.

The project is being designed and engineered by the Federal Highway Administration, which has an agreement with the National Park Service for all major repair work, Molling said. The FHA in turn contracts for the work, being done by Bryant’s Land Development of Burnsville.

While requests for road repairs can take up to two years, the FHA had a contract underway within 48 hours due to the public safety aspect of the Craggy Gardens slide.

The project is expected to cost between $20,000 and $30,000, Molling said.

The Blue Ridge Parkway has a maintenance backlog of $500 million, of which $300 million is for roadwork.

“A roadway has a life cycle. If it’s not regularly maintained, it’s going to come to the end of its useful life cycle,” he said.

Before you go

Visit the Blue Ridge Parkway's real time road map at www.nps.gov/maps/blri/road-closures/.