High times.
One time, Brian Greppo and I went to see the World’s Highest Suspension Bridge.
Pretty cool, you say — isn’t that in France somewhere? It is not. You will notice that I did not say world’s tallest suspension bridge, or world’s largest suspension bridge, but rather world’s highest. You see, the World’s Highest Suspension Bridge is in Canon City, CO. The bridge, which is flat, spans the Royal Gorge — a 1,053’ deep chasm in the middle of an otherwise flat area of vacant desert. The middle of the bridge, therefore, is over 1,000’ off the ground, making it the highest in the world by far.
Constructed in 1929 for no good reason, the Royal Gorge Bridge is some 880’ long and 18’ wide, and is made of wood — that’s right — supported by #9 steel cable. Underneath, a little stream flows through the gorge, carrying along rafts full of Sunday school groups and bored guides.
As is usual with this kind of thing, the publicity is way funnier than anything I could make up.
“Often compared to the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Empire State Building in New York City, the Royal Gorge Bridge in Canon City, Colorado is both daring in its design and remarkable in its achievement. It’s truly an engineering feat. The world’s highest Suspension Bridge is over a quarter of a mile long and hangs 1,053 feet above the roaring Arkansas River below. Though it doesn’t stand alone, the suspension bridge is the center jewel in a crown of engineering achievements all within the 360 acre theme park that some call ‘the real’ Colorado.”
– http://www.royalgorgebridge.com/html/park-information/highest-suspension-bridge.html
As far as I can tell, this thing is only once compared to the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building. For instance, it is nothing at all like the Eiffel Tower, in that there are not thousands of Arab panhandlers hanging around the base, while unlike the Empire State Building, it will never go on a terrorist’s target list.
To what end, this daring and remarkable engineering feat? Does it open a gateway to the west? Speed silver from mine to mouth? Not at all, friends. The Royal Gorge Bridge connects two tourist traps, each selling a wide array of Royal Gorge Bridge memorabilia.
On the near side, adjacent to the bus parking lot, is a strip that looks a little like Disneyland’s “Main Street USA,” only made to resemble a madman’s impression of a Colorado mining town. Like Disneyland, it even has a bored teenager dressed in a plastic suit in the boiling sun. The suit depicts a grizzled mountain man with one tooth and a corncob pipe. Fellow mountain man Brian Greppo had his picture taken with the character, but has since recovered his sense of dignity and will not give me a copy for public display. All around the town are stores selling t-shirts. It was incredible.
The tourist trap on the other side is mostly vacant buildings and cacti — too few people apparently being willing to cross the bridge, even on the golf cart that will give you a round trip for $10.00, to sustain the t-shirt business. You can’t really blame them for being unwilling to cross, as the bridge surface isn’t even solid. It is set up like the railroad bridge that it once was, with wooden ties going from side to side, with about a 6” gap between them. No adult could fall completely through, but you could certainly get a foot through if you didn’t watch where you were going.
Scary, you ask? Actually, not really. As I was to learn several years later during Army parachuting school, the mind is so seldom 1,000’ in the air that once it gets to be that high, it has no conception of the distance and so makes it out to be infinitely high. Being 35’ in the air is way scarier than 1,000’.
Brian and I spent our time on the bridge throwing things off. First, we spit, but the wind took it and it wasn’t as fun as you’d think. We threw pennies off, too, but you can only see those down to about halfway to the bottom before it gets to be too far. We thought of throwing a larger object, and had even collected a rock for the purpose, before we took note of the rafters at the base and thought better of it.
The best part of the whole deal is a sign on the end of the bridge.
“No fishing.”
{democracy:15}