Fwd: Chipman Trail Bridge Safety

[sean <o2design@wsu.edu>]

Title: Fwd: Chipman Trail Bridge Safety

> >From mailnull  Fri Oct  5
> 09:46:58 2001
> Resent-Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 09:46:36 -0700 (PDT)
> From: "SMW Scripter [MoscowSam]"
> <MoscowSam@moscow.com>
> To: "Vision 2020" <vision2020@moscow.com>
> Subject: Chipman Trail Bridge Safety
> Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 09:45:38 -0700
> X-Priority: 3
> Resent-From: vision2020@moscow.com
> X-Mailing-List: <vision2020@moscow.com> archive/latest/388
> X-Loop: vision2020@moscow.com
> Resent-Sender: vision2020-request@moscow.com
> Re: Chipman Trail bridge
> safety ...
>  
> I've been following this
> dialog and wondering about a
> separate matter: 
> What about the portions of the trail
> that never see sunshine
> and the snow and ice persists,
> on bridges or
> not?????  What do riders do about that?
>  
> Sam Scripter,
> Moscow

Great point, Sam.  They're scary!  I especially dread the section from POE to the Pullman trail head.  It is deep in shadow and becomes a real hazard with frozen jumbled footprints.  I imagine even walkers dread that area.

Clearly the ideal would be a lane plowed after each snowfall.  Some wonderful soul did this on more than one occasion last yr with an ATV and plow blade.  It made a tremendous difference.  They took the new fallen snow off the first morning and the Palouse sun did the rest.  That swath remained clear until the next snow.

Again, because we have such highly intermittent snowfalls we would only need a dozen or so plowings (I am going from memory, not stat's here).  I would estimate that such a task would take 60-70min (a fast bike covers the trail in 20min one direction).  If we had 20x that it needed plowed we are still only looking at 20-30hr of labor for weeks and weeks of improved safety.  These figures would suggest that taking a closer look at this possibility would be worthwhile.  Conceivably the plowing would be even faster with a vehicle (eg, Jeep w/ narrower blade to easily clear the bridges).

Regarding a question raised about roller bladers and sand for painting bridges, I would defer to more experienced enthusiasts in this sport.  My limited time on skates on the trail leads me to believe the bridges are just plain rough to begin with and that a grainy surface would not be a significant problem.  In fact, when one encounters dampness on the bridges the grip might be welcome.

--
Thanks,
s


        * * * * * * * *
        Sean Michael