The combination of winter weather and the I-40 Rockslide depressed Smoky Mountain National Park visits for February by 28.4 percent (which equates to 100,000 fewer visits for the month). Year-to-date travel is down17.5 percent.
     During February 2010 a non-stop series of winter weather events forced closure of the Newfound Gap Road on 15 occasions compared with five closure events in 2009.
     Those closures caused declines at all the park’s main entrances: Cherokee was down 20.4 percent, Gatlinburg was down 19.1 percent, and Townsend dropped 7.3 percent. Cades Cove also experienced closures.
     The 13 outlying areas were off by 62 percent from 2009 – lead by a 97.5 percent drop in travel across the Foothills Parkway-East in Cocke County.
     Last year that one entrance accounted for over half the Outlying areas total, but this year the travel on I-40 past TN Exit 443 is only a trickle due to the rockslide that blocks all traffic near the North Carolina and Tennessee state line.

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