Beginning Tuesday morning, January 19, 2016,  and continuing for approximately one month, Blue Ridge Parkway maintenance personnel will be conducting boom axe operations between Milepost 234.2 and Milepost 242.3, from Mahogany Rock to the Alligator Back area. Parkway visitors should anticipate intermittent and temporary closures in this area.

Effected sections will close at approximately 8:00 a.m. each weekday and re-open daily by 4:30 p.m. EST from Tuesday, January 19 to Friday, February 19, 2016. The road will be open on the weekend. Those who normally commute on the Parkway on Monday through Friday may want to find alternate routes.

Annually, Blue Ridge Parkway maintenance and resource management staff conduct maintenance activities that help control vegetation growth along the Parkway. To help insure safe sight distances and a clear right-of-way, this work requires using a large tractor with a cutting head on a long arm, or boom. This tractor must remain in the travel lanes during operation to properly perform its work while cutting the banks and road shoulders.

Consequently, within the work zone, both lanes of the Parkway will be closed to all activity (cars, bicycles, and hikers) to ensure the safety of the maintenance workers as well as Parkway visitors. Parkway managers ask for the public’s cooperation with this closure to insure optimal visitor safety.

Specific information regarding daily closures, related to this project or for any other reason, is available on the Parkway’s Real Time Road Map, found at www.virtualblueridge.com/parkway-info/road-closures.