Alva Review-Courier -

GATLINBURG, Tenn. (AP) — In the summer of 2019, the near-silence of a secluded, mossy hollow in Great Smoky Mountains National Park was disturbed by the sound of rock drills and hammers.

Half inside a cave, a team of wildlife technicians and trail crew members were moving a pile of debris that blocked the entrance. For eight hours the six-person crew shoveled "a dump truck of rocks" and boulders by hand to clear out a narrow passage to a massive cave.

Ordinarily, the National Park Service would not do something like this. Natural processes, like erosion, are supposed to occur within the parks...