Lost: One bridge. About nine metres long. Last seen spanning Brothers Creek on the slopes of Hollyburn Mountain. If found, call the District of West Vancouver.
Local hiker Paul Hundal made his way to the top of the Brothers Creek Fire Access Road Feb. 25 to find the wooden bridge linking the access route to Brothers Creek Trail had disappeared.
“I got to the point where I’d normally cross the bridge and there was nothing there. There was just a ravine. I was actually dumfounded,” Hundal said. “There was no sign of any scarring or scouring of the creek bed or anything happening. It seemed to be cleanly removed.”
Hundal reported the lost span to the District of West Vancouver, which owns the land. After some confusion, staff had to question when they had last seen their bridge.
“District staff are aware that the bridge is missing. We believe that the most likely scenario is that it’s been washed out,” said Jeff McDonald, district spokesman.
Staff were last in the area about three weeks ago, but the area was quite snow covered at the time so it was difficult to know for sure what happened, McDonald said.
Eventually, there will be plans to replace the bridge but the district first has to figure out what happened to the original one, McDonald said.
“We’d need to determine what happened first and then make some estimates about what it would cost to replace it. When that would happen, we just don’t know. It depends what the options are for building a new bridge,” McDonald said.
That may involve falling a couple trees from nearby and using them as the main struts, or they could bring in new materials, which would be more expensive.
“Until we determine that, we can’t say when it will be replaced. It’s not an item that we have planned for in this year’s budget,” he said.
In the meantime, people are warned to use the trail at their own risk, McDonald added.
“The people who go in there are generally pretty hard core and depending on water levels, they would cross the river, bridge or no bridge, just by fording it,” he said.
A recent inventory by the district found 196 front-country bridges they own or are responsible for but only about 50 are of a similar size to the one that formerly passed over Brothers Creek, McDonald said.
