Deals Gap - Tail of the Dragon

We made a quick trip up to Sevierville staying at River Plantation with the Bus and Hog and did a day trip to Deals Gap. According to the Internet, the northbound portion was open and the south bound portion of 129 was closed due to rock slides.

Well the real deal is 129 is totally closed at the north end of the 11 mile run and all traffic does a u-turn at the bridge and you go back to the beginning. So we did 636 curves in 22 miles, saw two bike accidents (riders OK) and crossed the mountain from Cherokee to Gatlinburg twice.

Just wanted to let anyone who is thinking about doing the Dragon to know things are really screwed up!

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Sounds like the newspaper reports of one lane open were either wrong, or they reclosed it and the paper did not report that.

Tom/Jon,

Papers are too slow to inform of new road closing. Besides, news papers only report on the "good" news of the day - right?

You might want to try checking in with the NCDOT web site for the latest news on closings and openings. Or call the 511 number for current information on road closings.