When I first moved out to Washington state, I didn’t really know all the cool local hiking spots. Obviously, cause I wasn’t a local. It took a few years for me to start hearing and seeing these places on social media that looked too good to be true. One particular place was the Vance Creek Bridge.
The Vance Creek Bridge is the second highest railway bridge built in the United States, soaring 347 feet over a thick evergreen valley. The bridge is on the eastern side of the Olympic Peninsula, outside of the small town Shelton. There’s no barriers, just a wood plank bridge. Before I really got into hiking here, I saw amazing photos of people sitting on the edge of this bridge, legs dangling, a sense of freedom (or stupidity, you pick). I wanted to go there and be those people. I missed my chance. Sometime in 2015 or even 2014, the trail and bridge were closed off. The surrounding area is private property. Then to make matters worse, someone started a fire on the bridge, marked the bridge up with graffiti, and several of the railroad ties are now broken. It’s an understatement to say that you borrow the land you walk on. None of us actually own any of this. We travel, sleep, eat, explore borrowed land. And in that sense, we have to respect the land we borrow.
Now this area is closed off with Mason County Sheriffs writing tickets and sending people to court for wanting to view a pretty astounding piece of history. I am not as bold as I once was. I also hate paying for senseless tickets. So I accepted that Vance Creek wasn’t in my future. Instead, I invited a friend along to go explore the High Steel Bridge.
The High Steel Bridge is a truss arch bridge that rises 375 feet above the Skokomish River South Fork. The bridge was originally used as a railway bridge but now is paved wide enough for a single car. We set off on a dreary, foggy Sunday morning after getting coffee. This was also my first time taking a trip in my new (to me) Subaru. I went from a rear wheel drive truck to a four wheel drive car and wanted to test it out.
The drive was a quick 40 minutes from my place to the bridge. From I-5, exit to Hwy 101 and continue north to Shelton, WA. Just outside of Shelton, through some farmland and cute houses, you turn onto a forest road (NF-2340). The road was gravel, full of ruts and potholes, but ultimately easy to drive. Stone had a blast splashing in the puddles and bumps.
We got up to the bridge, drove across (which was mildly scary), then parked on the side of the road after we crossed. There were no other cars around, and we may have passed two other vehicles on the drive up. I got Stone out of the car and into his rain boots and jacket. He held my hand as we walked down the length of the bridge, overlooking the valley below. Stone’s head just peaked above the barrier. I lifted him up so he could see just how high up were were from the river fork. Stone jumped in puddles and jumped off the sidewalk step to make even bigger splashes in the puddle.
The view from the bridge is beautiful, fog or no fog. Honestly, I feel that the fog adds to these views in the PNW. Something about towering trees drifting into nothing. We only stayed on the bridge for about 20 minutes, long enough to walk from one end to the other and back. We took a ridiculous amount of photos, both of the view and of the graffiti. The main reason we decided to walk the full length of the bridge was to check out all the art left by people. Most of it was simple tagging. Some were cute, positive messages, some curse words, some body parts. My friend and I were giggling about all of them as she took lots of photos. Stone just puddle jumped. By the time we returned to the car, we were all soaked. The fog had transitioned to a tolerable rain.
We drove back to Olympia with the heat on full blast to warm up and get dry. Back home, Stone and I got out of our rain boots and coats, ate lunch, then drifted off into naptime.
