Forest Serv. replaces bridge w/ pile of snowballs

So the nice new steel and timber bridge built in June-July 2010 is gone, eh?

Some Google searching turned up the construction contract and drawings:
Grouse Creek Trail Bridge, Mt Baker Ranger District
www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=for...89&tab=core&_cview=1

$30,400!

Here's the old bridge on the Heliotrope Ridge trail in October 2009, and the new bridge just after completion in July 2010:

Gone, I dunno, at this point I can only confirm that it is missing......

I wonder if it isn't time to design a bridge that can be removed and set aside in the winter that meets the needs for summer hikers and put in place a cheaper bridge that is expendable for winter months. Or some other solution, given some thought.

I remember having to cross the log of death a few years ago and would rather not have to do that again.

Alan

$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...

maybe someone should climb up a nearby tree and install a rope swing.

To the best of my knowledge this is only the second time the bridge has been taken out in the past twenty years. The crossing over Grouse Creek at this point would be very dangerous without a bridge. There was actually an accident a few years back that happened in a guided party where a client fell off the "bridge of death", was injured and had to be rescued.