Won't be a bridge for long

The trail I've walked for thirty years isn't very walkable today. I came past on my way home late afternoon, just before the sun set. Not that the sun was visible except briefly this morning; the rest of the day it just rained. The light wasn't good, but I could see the bridge was just a few inches from not being a bridge.

The creek has flooded across the trail on one end, blocking the trail (unless I was wearing tall rain boots). I took a few photos, then walked out onto the bridge. It was creepy.



This is the creek that usually flows gently in its channel under the bridges, but that's the only place you see it. It meanders through a flat valley, hidden by trees and bushes.

In the flat part of the valley, where it always floods the road, the creek flows past a heronry with more than a dozen nests. By the end of February, the nests are full of birds, getting ready to raise their families. In the fall, I sometimes see a rogue salmon that managed to get upstream to spawn, slipping past the salmon hatchery a few miles downstream.

I've walked its length thousands of times over the years. And when we first bought our little farm, this is the trail where I rode my Thoroughbred. Back then, the trail was sections of powerline access road connected by narrow pathways, built by the locals. When the county acquired the land and started to build a formal trail system, they built the bridges that finally gave us access to the entire length of the valley.