Forest Serv. replaces bridge w/ pile of snowballs

Word on the street is that if there is money left over from the Canyon Creek repair this summer it will be applied and used for the Glacier Creek repair. However, if Canyon Creek is any indication it could be awhile before the north side of Baker is open again. Probably going to be even harder getting money given the current "starve the beast" mentality of our current congress.

$30,400 is absolutely ridiculous!! This is what is wrong with gov't spending in every single project today! I hope they don't rebuild...

LOL.  Just think, you could make a fortune if you would build such bridges for $3,400 and only charge the FS for $15,000, fully installed; more than 100% ROI; how can you resist.  FS & NPS need lots of bridges on trail; you could easily get contracts for 3/wk for 3 summer months = $140,000+ for 3 months; go for it! Join the 1%! Once in business, you could go south as days shorten to do even more business.

Actually, $30K seems a relative bargain compared to National Park trail bridges.  Olympic built similar bridges at around $50,000 in 1990's dollars as well as larger trail bridges costing well over a hundred grand when I worked there.  Several of them were under-engineered and wrecked by snow within  a few years.  I heard Mt. Rainier lost a six-figure bridge to an avalanche at Maple Falls (Stevens Canyon) in it's first winter, then doubled down on the replacement.  Olympic is finishing up a trail suspension bridge in designated Wilderness near Staircase that will cost well over a million dollars!   

NPS management is so out of touch with fiscal reality, they have proposed spending $7.4 million for a bear-viewing bridge for the 1% at Katmai, a park that costs over a thousand bucks in charter flights to reach from Anchorage:
www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2013/02/na...i-national-park22823