The Bridge To Nowhere

I hail from a family that is large in number and spread out, five siblings in all. One sibling resides in Alaska but is spending the summer with our parents in Southern California. Another local sibling and I plan to take advantage of this summer of proximity. ‘How so,’ you may be compelled to query. Last weekend we hiked the Bridge to Nowhere, a trail in Azusa. We plan for this to be one of several such engagements to capitalize on this above noted proximity.

The Bridge to Nowhere is a ten-mile round trip to a grand concrete bridge built in 1936. ‘A five mile hike to a bridge,’ you say out loud with a puzzled look on your face, ‘Why not just take the road leading to the bridge.’ There was once an asphalt road, but it was washed away shortly after its construction and was never rebuilt. The bridge and road were a depression-era make-work project from the Federal government. But anyway, really a neat bridge!

I was expecting a quaint neat little hike, but not so. To our bewilderment there were already 100 cars and two buses parked at the trailhead by the time we arrived at 7:50 am! The trail itself was loaded with hiking traffic. We arrived at the bridge to find a bungee-jumping business with 40 paying jumpers! Truth, the Bridge to Nowhere was now a bungee destination!

Regardless, nice hike. We also observed a dozen people along the river panning for gold. Five hours round trip. We hope to encounter less traffic on our next hiking venture during this summer of proximity.


-klem