It could take three months or longer to clean up a rock slide and reopen a section of Interstate 40 on the North Carolina side of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. That means getting to the park from some areas will be a bit tricky. It also means don't rely on your GPS units to find a shortcut, as that could spell trouble.

Comparatively few people think of visiting national parks during the winter months, and that's unfortunate for a variety of reasons. Not only does this season present an entirely different view of the parks than the one you normally experience during spring and summer, but lodging typically is less expensive, as the following offers demonstrate.

With more than 150 documented paranormal events, many of them experienced by credible witnesses such as rangers and scientists, Mammoth Cave National Park easily qualifies for the title “most haunted natural wonder in the world.” Park rangers Colleen O’Connor Olson and Charles Hanion have recorded many of the park’s creepiest tales in their book Scary Stories of Mammoth Cave, a must read for anybody intrigued by the park’s supernatural history.

There is perhaps no more ethereal place than the Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park. There, when the night skies are thick with scudding clouds, ghostly phantoms promenade on the geysers' drifting zephyrs.