Snow collapses much-loved Sierra landmark. We owe it to ourselves to rebuild | Opinion

One of Fresno County’s most treasured and photographed landmarks collapsed sometime over the winter. Too much snow for its 85-year-old timber beams to bear.

We owe it to ourselves to rebuild Dinkey Creek Bridge in the Sierra National Forest. As soon as feasible.

Featured in countless wedding photos, family vacation snapshots and Instagram selfies, the elegant bowstring truss arch bridge now sits in a mangled heap. The sad news arrived last week in social media posts from the city of Fresno, which operates Camp Fresno, adjacent to the bridge.

Seeing those photos instantly put a lump in my throat — and I don’t even have a personal connection to the place.

Built in 1938 by the California Conservation Corps and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the 90-foot-long wooden bridge simply could not withstand the snow load caused by one of the heaviest winters in California’s recorded history. Snowpack in the Kings River basin, of which Dinkey Creek is a tributary, measured 261% of average on April 1, according to the state Department of Water Resources.

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Located in what has been a popular camping, fishing and sightseeing area for generations, the Dinkey Creek Bridge sits at an elevation of 5,680 feet.

Two Sierra National Forest employees, including an archaeologist, who surveyed the damage this week encountered 8 to 9 feet of snow and had to snowshoe to the site from McKinley Grove Road (which remains closed to the public), according to district Ranger Kim Sorini-Wilson.

Fortunately, the federal agency feels as I and many others do. Sorini-Wilson confirmed the bridge will be rebuilt, citing practical, historical and emotional reasons.

“A lot of folks have heartfelt feelings about that bridge,” Sorini-Wilson said.

The Dinkey Creek Bridge was constructed during the Great Depression as a means to improve access for recreation and logging. In 1956 a newer steel bridge was built downstream closer to the McKinley Grove of giant sequoias, and by 1965 the old wooden bridge was closed to vehicles due to rot. Those rotten boards were replaced in the 1980s.

In the decades since, it has stood as an architectural curiosity and much-loved landmark while serving the practical purpose of linking Camp Fresno and Camp Fresno Junior, the group camp. The city of Fresno has operated both facilities since the 1920s under a special-use permit with the Forest Service. (Sometimes rather poorly.)

Rebuilding the bridge won’t be easy due to its rare design. While bowstring arch trusses are fairly common in roof architecture, very few bridges are built that way. In fact, a 1987 Caltrans survey of historical bridges found no other examples in the state.

Sorini-Wilson indicated that in addition to rebuilding the wooden bridge, some of the broken timbers from the previous structure would remain at the site as part of a historical exhibit.

“I don’t know the details or timeline on anything yet,” Sorini-Wilson said. “We have to talk to the regional office.”

Kudos to the Forest Service for moving swiftly on this. However, I’m a little worried over what other damage, both to historical structures and modern infrastructure, may have occurred as a result of the heavy winter still waiting to be discovered.

Sorini-Wilson, whose Prather-headquartered district includes areas south and east of the San Joaquin River from the foothills to the Sierra crest, said her crews have surveyed “everything up to the snowline.”

Beyond that, we’ll have to wait for all that snow to melt.