Sneaking around construction of the new Traffic Bridge.
The New Traffic Bridge. It'll be nice if this ever opens... I wonder if it will be this year or next year...? How long have they been working on it. The original took less than a year to build. There was probably over a hundred people working on the original - man-handling all that steel into place. Now, whenever I pass this site, there are maybe a dozen guys working on the site at any given time.
Pedestrian crossing sign someone was modifying - perhaps they were in the process of modifying it when they were scared off. I'm guessing that little line above his head is the beginning of a beret that didn't get finished before the "artist" was obliged to abandon their work.
We entered the trail under the Broadway Bridge - a trail I have ridden many, MANY times before... but not in the last decade... It was much as I recalled it, thought a little overgrown.
Unfortunately we couldn't get through the University Bridge (or beyond - at least on this trail).
a fair section of the trail has been destroyed by one of the riverbank slumps that have taken place over the last decade or so, and has yet to be reestablished...
I'd considered carrying the bikes across... but not knowing the state of the trail on the other side, I decided we should head back and I would do some further scouting on my own at a later date.
Luckily we didn't have to ride all the way back to the Broadway Bridge, there was another sure trail we were able to climb up and out to the main Meewasin Valley Trail and from there continue North to the University Bridge.
North of the University Bridge we rejoined the single track in the brush along the riverbank.
A lot of is is very close to the river's edge.
Climbing up from the river's edge a bit.
Big damned Pelican flying overhead. Actually it looks kind of small in the picture. Trust me, it was a big damned bird!
Flying away to join the other Pelicans by the weir.
Stopped briefly to discuss what the possible use of this apparatus could have been. (It was part of a lift for a riverside ski jump!)
Stopped in the shade near the weir for snacks and water. The Girl was pretty much out of water and getting excessively warm, had a headache and was very tired, so we called it a day and decided to head back.
... after briefly reconnoitring the trails ahead to see where they lead off to after the weir.
After the steep climb up from the weir to the paved Meewasin Trail I waited for the kids by a bench - and noticed it was a memorial bench for Karen Shank - a childhood friend who died as a result of injuries sustained in a traffic collision a few years back. (I believe she was rear-ended, transported to hospital, but the released. Later in the evening she started speaking incoherently and an ambulance was called for her. On the way to the hospital she slipped into a coma and never woke up).
2005... wow... I can't believe it's been 12 years!
Stopped to read about the old Varsity Ski Jump before heading home. I wonder if they landed on the river!? I know the river level dropped considerably during winters and completely froze over in the days before the weir was built... but the ski jump was apparently still in operation until 1971 - thirty years after the weir was completed...
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