Blue Ridge Parkway closure

A 20-mile stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina might be closed for months due to a slope failure beneath the roadbed.

A crack that measures 200 feet long, 8 inches wide and up to 5 feet deep opened in the center of the parkway near milepost 374 in Buncombe County, just north of Asheville, N.C. Engineers believe that the crack formed because excessive rains caused fill material below the road to give way.

The parkway will be closed between mileposts 355 and 375, perhaps through the end of the summer. A detour will be established near Mount Mitchell State Park that will direct travelers to Asheville.

That sounds like the same kind of problem they had in Smoky Mtn. NP with rains this past winter that washed out parts of 441 - the road between Gatlinburg and Cherokee. Hope they can get it repaired as quickly as they did 441!

Seems like there's always some section of the BRP that's closed. When headed to Bloomsburg for the rally, we had to divert off the parkway for some distance. Actually the detour was pretty nice, good roads and allowing for more speed than they do on the BRP. More traffic, but still was fun either way.