Why not a bridge?

[Romana]

With the increasing number of people hiking out to the Magic bus, why is there no bridges over the rivers? I'm not talking full size road bridges, but what about a rope bridge? Back in the day when I was a kid we used to have simple three rope bridges we constructed over a local creek / river so we could get from one side to the other. Only we made it using fencing wire, being farm kids and all. There was the central wire that consisted of 4 strands of fencing wire, and two side wires made of 2 strands. Every few yards we'd have stringers between the wires for stability. It spanned about 35 yards across that creek. Being knowledgeable of fences we strung the fencing wire across the river in the first 4 strands as tight as we could, then twisted the cable dozens of times to make it tighter before securing it at each end with star pickets driven deep as we could get them into the ground. That made for a very tight cable. Then we mounted the two side cables. These were strung around a tree either end of the bridge which were both protected by half an old tire turned inside out to stop the cable from digging in to the tree. We were smart enough to do it suspension style, so at either end the cable was higher than us, so we could duck under it.

Now 25 years later, the bridge is still there, and still in use. It cost us nothing because there was plenty of fencing wire around and the star pickets and tires were free.

Just saying, why not build one or two over the Savage and Tek in Chris's memory?
http://glenn.cockwell.com/scouting/scouting_rope_bridge.html

[Samuel]

I think there would be to much visitors if there is a bridge, there will be MORE trash and more things will get broken/stolen.
I'm going there in a couple of years and I'm going to fix all windows and clean the whole place up. For me it's a big dissapointment that people are ruining the bus.
Greetings samuel

[smpowers]

There was a cable bridge. Locals took it down years ago because it was in disrepair. The posts are still visible a touch downstream from the trail/river junction by the hydometer station.
There has been much talk of placing a bridge, but there is strong local opposition. Many Healy residents have threatened to tear it down. HOWEVER...this is state land with no restrictions, there is NO legal reason why you couldn't place one yourself. The folks threatening to tear it down would never leave their couches to actually do it.
The real problem is that this area is prime hunting ground. The stampede trail is an easement that punches into the middle of Denaili Park, a state easment that allows hunting. So hunters head down the stampede trail for animals that wander out of the park. Putting in a bridge would make another 10-15 miles of this easement easy acess for hunters. Increasing access means increasing hunting access. So enviromentalists would have an issue with increased hunting pressure on Denali Park animals, and hunters would dislike the increased competition. The hunters being the ones who would actually destroy a bridge.

If one were to put a bridge in, I would suggest going a couple hundred feet away from the main trail. This would keep it "hidden" from casual observers. If there was only a narrow foot path, hunters would have to leave their 4 wheelers and hike in to vandalize it. This would be unlikely to happen.