Great Smoky Mountains among growing list of national park closures due to coronavirus

Blackberry Mountain is located on 5,200 acres in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Billed as "your own private national park," more than half of the resort's wilderness can be explored by horseback or mountain bike, or through fishing, canoeing, kayaking or tubing. Blackberry Mountain is located on 5,200 acres in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Billed as "your own private national park," more than half of the resort's wilderness can be explored by horseback or mountain bike, or through fishing, canoeing, kayaking or tubing.

By MEAD GRUVER and BRADY McCOMBS / The Associated Press March 25, 2020 5 min read

In this Jan. 29, 2019 file photo a couple of hikers take a moment to take a selfie at the water side of the Y in the Great Smoky Mountains National Parks. Three of America’s most well-known national parks, Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Great Smoky Mountains, closed their gates Tuesday, March 24, 2020, as people shut in because of the coronavirus lost more options for recreation. (Joy Kimbrough/The Daily Times via AP,File)

CHEYENNE, Wyoming – Three of America’s most well-known national parks – Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Great Smoky Mountains – closed their gates Tuesday as people shut in because of the coronavirus lost more options for recreation. They join a growing list of National Parks sites from New York to California that have closed, including the Statue of Liberty and Alcatraz.

Yellowstone, the world’s first national park, and neighboring Grand Teton, announced their closures hours after Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. They follow closures at Yosemite in California and Rocky Mountain in Colorado in recent days.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt had promised last week that at parks that were still open, entrance fees would be temporarily waived to make it easier for people to get outdoors and “implement some social distancing.”

FILE – In this Aug. 28, 2016 file photo visitors watch the morning sun illuminate the Grand Tetons from within the Great Room at the Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park north of Jackson, Wyo. On Tuesday, March 24, 2020, the National Park Service announced that Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks would be closed until further notice, and no visitor access will be permitted to either park. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley,File)

He gave individual park superintendents the power to close or modify operations to adhere to health safety recommendations from the White House and Centers for Disease Control.

Other parks that remain open have closed shuttles, campgrounds, visitor centers and some trails to prevent the spread of COVID-19.