STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Justin Blackstead had to drag the Fox Creek Bridge back upstream after the bridge was swept off its moorings and floated downstream during flooding following massive snowfall in 2017.

It floated away again in 2019. And in 2023 flooding moved the creek 20 feet, leaving the undersized bridge in a place where it was not doing anyone any good.

Blackstead, trail crew supervisor for the Ketchum Ranger District, is working this summer to ensure that doesn’t happen again. He and the Wood River Trail Coalition are putting in a new 70-foot bridge at the crossing a mile up from the Fox Creek Trailhead.

The new bridge is expected to last into the next century.

“The bridge has been a perennial issue on one of the most used trails in the Wood River Valley,” he said. “Engineers said we had to build a 70-foot bridge to do it right—that’s huge. So, I went up canyon and down canyon looking for a place where we might be able to build a shorter bridge.

“I did find a site downstream around the corner where we wouldn’t have needed as a big a bridge, but hikers and bikers would have been faced with an immediate steep climb up. We would have had to reroute the trail in that case.”

Among those helping to make the new bridge a reality is the Wood River Women’s Foundation, a 300-member philanthropic organization whose members assess and respond to needs in the valley.

The women awarded $20,000 to the Wood River Trails Coalition this year to replace the existing bridge. And this past week 20 members of the organization accompanied WRTC Development Director Liz Pedersen and Blackstead up the trail to see what they’re money was going to.

Accompanied by two tail-wagging dogs, the women passed deep blue penstemon, yellow cinquefoil and white yarrow as they made their way up the trail.

The trail looks rough in places right now, Blackstead told them. But, once the project is completed in late summer, it will be reseeded.

Pedersen described how the non-profit WRTC creates and maintains hiking trails from Bellevue to Prairie Creek. Last summer its trail crew built the new Samson’s Trail for trail bikers with access points at Hidden Valley Trail in Croy Canyon and Kelly Gulch.

This August it plans to construct more trails in the Hailey or Bellevue area in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management.

The Ketchum Ranger District, meanwhile, maintains 400 miles of trail in an area that includes Deer Creek to the south, Bald Mountain and Baker Lake, Norton Lakes and Pioneer Cabins in the Smoky and Pioneer Mountains.

Federal cutbacks of personnel and funds have made it difficult for the U.S. Forest Service to maintain trails across the United States. But the Sun Valley-area trails have been well maintained thanks to the partnership of the WRTC with the Forest Service.

Crews are quick to respond to downed logs on the trail, and six-crew trail crews divided into three groups of two work throughout the summer to build water drainages and clear trails of deadfall and rocks.

They’re assisted by volunteer work parties organized by WRTC.

“People think trails can be maintained with volunteers, but most volunteers can only get one mile in,” said Pedersen. “It takes people walking and biking all day to get to some of the locations, and they sometimes stay overnight to finish their work.

“Our volunteers are unbelievable—they take that first mile off the backs of the professional trail crews,” Pedersen added. “Volunteers smash rocks, fill in holes, cut back brush. Hopefully, our model can be implemented throughout the West.”

Both WRTC employees and Blackstead spend the time they’re not out on the trail applying for grants for various projects.

“So, having Wood River Women’s Foundation partnership means so much. We’re very grateful to have you in the Wood River Valley,” Pedersen told the women.

In no time, it seemed, the group had arrived at the site of the new bridge.

The bridge is made of a special metal that naturally rusts, Blackstead told the group. It was silver when it was hauled into the Fox Creek parking area this spring. Already, it has taken on a reddish-brown rust patina that blends into the wooded landscape.

It was brought in in two pieces. But it’s still big enough it couldn’t have been hauled to the site where it will be placed.

A military-style Chinook helicopter will pick up the bridge and drop it onto the moorings that workers build.

“We’ll pull the old bridge back upstream from its current site to help build the pilings for the new one,” Blackstead said. “The pilots incredible. They will set it down perfectly and they’ll  be in and out in an hour and a half.”

The Ketchum Ranger District had considered waiting a year on the project. But it was able to piggyback on Sun Valley Resort’s project this summer to take out the old Christmas and Lookout Express lifts on Bald Mountain and replace them with new lifts.

Having pilots fly from Bald Mountain to Fox Creek will save about $100,000 of the original cost estimate since they won’t have to fly from their place of origin at $80,000 an hour.

“We’ll end up with a bargain basement price for the project thanks to Sun Valley,” said Pedersen. “We’re super excited about this.”

Originally, the bridge moving was scheduled for June 29. But it was postponed due to the helicopters’ schedule. It now is projected to happen sometime between July 13 and 15. It will happen on one of the busiest hiking weeks of the summer so the Forest Service will have to manage traffic keeping people out of the area.

“When they say the helicopter’s ready, we’ll say, ‘Yes.’ And if there are people in the area, the helicopters will leave so it’s a hard closure,” said Blackstead.

The best place to watch the operation will be from the ridge of the Taylor Canyon trail across the highway, added Pedersen.

One of our goals of the WRWF this year is to get members out to see what money going towards, as it generates excitement for the work the organization does.

“I loved learning about the great network of people keeping up the trails in the Sun Valley area,” said WRWF member Lucinda Chapman