Snowmobilers look to rehab flood-battered bridge over the Winooski
By Jacob Miller-Arsenault | Community News Service A snowmobile bridge across the Winooski River near the Waterbury-Bolton town line can’t seem to catch a break from multiple floods over the past year.
July 12, 2024: Two uprooted trees are caught and debris litters the ‘Winooski Wonder’ snowmobile bridge for the third time in a year. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
Barely a month after a carefully planned, technical operation to remove a tree caught in the span since the July and December 2023 floods, two more logs are now jammed into the structure and debris covers the deck. The volunteers who look after the bridge say another expedition now will be required to clear it span and resume repairs if they hope to continue to use the bridge in future winters.
June 1, 2024: Arborist Corey Hathaway (left) gets to work to free a tree caught on the bridge since the July 2023 flood. Photo courtesy of Green Mountain Roamers
“Nobody expected this to happen three times in a year,” is what Green Mountain Roamers trailmaster Steve Torrey said about the flooding that struck Vermont yet again on July 10. The latest iteration damaged more than 60 miles of trail maintained by the snowmobile club which takes care of the bridge, and it heaped debris on what they call the Winooski Wonder Bridge just weeks after it was freed from an oppressive maple tree lodged in the span since last year.
The first tree became caught in the July 2023 flood and remained there until June 1 of this year when arborist Corey Hathaway led an effort to dislodge it from the bridge. The latest bout of flooding this month now has left two more trees dangling from the deck and new deposits from the river now litter the bridge — stacks of sticks, twigs and corn stalks drape over the structure. Club President Nathan Lafont said uprooted trees that floated downriver have formed a pile of lumber nearly his height that’s now collected in the bridge’s southside cabling. The debris did no damage to the cables themselves, he noted.
All told, Torrey estimates another day’s cleanup will be needed to remove it all — the smaller debris, at least.
Luckily, those trees are hanging more loosely this time. “Once we get out there and assess [the situation], we might be able to do something less invasive than last time,” Torrey said.
July 11, 2023: The first of three recent floods fills the Winooski River to the bridge. Debris floating downstream catches in the span. Photo by Gordon Miller
Mission One: Freeing the 2023 tree
The original tree arrived courtesy of the July 2023 flood that swept through Vermont. The December flood once again brought the river level up to the bridge, but the stuck tree didn’t budge.
Built in 1993, the 337-foot bridge was once the longest snowmobile suspension bridge in North America, according to the Green Mountain Roamers. Torrey said he believes there’s now a longer such span in Quebec.
December 23, 2023: Another flood washes more uprooted trees down the river. Eventually, most break free but the log stuck since the summertime remains in the bridge. Photo by Gordon Miller
The bridge lets both local snowmobilers and those visiting from around New England travel between Waterbury and Duxbury where the neighboring Mad River Ridge Runners snowmobile club maintains the trails.
In addition to boosting local tourism, the presence of the bridge helps improve the trails, Torrey explained. The more people who use the trails, the more likely membership in local clubs increases, allowing them to take better care of the trails, he said.
Yet issues have plagued the bridge since 2019. That’s when an engineer checked it out and walked away concerned that prior storm damage had eroded some of the abutments, Torrey explained. It was preemptively closed for the season, a pause that was later extended by the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. Last year, club members were interested in seeing what it would take to reopen it.
“[We were] getting ready to do some repairs on it early last summer [and] get somebody out to look at what had happened in the two years we were away from it,” he said.
Then the July 2023 flood hit.
Afterward, the Waterbury snowmobile club tried to apply for funding to fix the bridge, first to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and then to the Small Business Administration, but it was denied, Torrey said.
“Once that happened, we started to go ahead and say, ‘Okay, we’ve got to do this ourselves,’” he recounted.
Torrey ballparked the original cost of the tree removal and cleanup after the 2023 floods at several thousand dollars.
The cost wasn’t as much of a challenge as the mission itself. Freeing the tree was a nightmare prospect for some arborists, who “literally laughed at us,” Torrey recalled. In search of someone up to the task, the club reached out to Hathaway, owner and president of Lamoille Treescapes Inc. in Johnson.
Hathaway was up for the task, and together he and the volunteers from the Green Mountain Roamers made a plan for the June 1 operation to safely free the tree. Also on hand for the unusual event were members of the Mad River Snowmobile Club.
Photos courtesy of the Green Mountain Roamers. Click to enlarge
Under clear blue skies, Hathaway and another worker wielded chainsaws to make the crucial cut, just below where the tree leaned on the bridge. As the log flew away, Hathaway dangled safely from a harness attached to the bridge. Beforehand, he had decided to rope himself to both sides of the bridge for safety.
Also present for the effort was a crew from Stowe Mountain Rescue. In their dive gear, the rescue team members were positioned in the river below to catch Hathaway if necessary.
When the moment came, Hathaway said he was ready for it. “Having that log fly away from me – it happened in a split second,” he said. “I did tie myself away so that when I did fall freely, I swung away (from the tree).”
Stowe Mountain Rescue member Drew Clymer was happy with how the operation went. “The clearing was well-planned and beautifully executed,” he said. “It turned out to just be a pleasant day in the river.”
Getting rid of the tree was step one for the Green Mountain Roamers in rehabilitating the bridge. On June 29, club members and volunteers completed what Torrey called “stage two” — cleaning the bridge of debris and clearing overgrown vegetation in effort to get the path opened back up.
Little did they expect the Winooski River to dish up a rerun of last summer’s flood less than two weeks later.
July 19, 2024: A closeup of the bridge just last week shows the separate logs and deck debris. Photo by Gordon Miller
Another flood, two more stuck trees
Today, the new trees caught in the bridge are dangling in a manner that has them pointing downstream with the flow of the river. The log caught last summer spent nearly a year on the upstream side, jutting up against the bridge and putting pressure on it. Lafont and Torrey expect to assess the latest situation with arborist Hathaway, who contacted them shortly after the recent flooding occurred.
Fortunately given the turn of events, engineers were set to evaluate the structure in August for an overall renovation that those involved believe will exceed six figures. Torrey said the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers, known as VAST, arranged for an inspection. Meanwhile, club members have already begun planning how to raise the money.
Now all everyone invested in the fate of the Winooski Wonder Bridge can do is wait.
The engineers will assess the damage to the bridge and abutments and recommend repairs, Torrey said.
“Regardless of it being repaired and replaced, the trees had to come off,” Torrey said. “That money had to get spent, we had to do that for a life-safety standard. Where we go from here is really going to drive on what the engineer says it needs.”
Detail from the bridge. (click to enlarge) Photo courtesy of Green Mountain Roamers
Club members are considering other adjustments to the bridge that could make it better withstand future flooding. For example, it’s too expensive to relocate, and a full replacement is out of the question, Torrey said. Raising the bridge higher above the river is a possibility, however. Just tightening the cables could lift it about 3 or 4 feet higher above the Winooski, Torrey pointed out.
Club leaders are also looking at tweaking the bridge approaches to make it easier for water to flow around the structure. At a minimum, the wooden decking, which took a further hit with the latest round of flooding, will need replacement, Lafont said.
Once the engineering assessment happens, the Roamers can start looking into the cost. VAST has already allocated some funds toward the renovation, Torrey said, but the club estimates the price to be in the mid-to-high six figures, if not higher. That estimate could force the club to look to major players in the community with a thirst for recreation as well as start a GoFundMe donation campaign, Torrey said.
Fall 2016: With Camels Hump in the distance and the Winooski River low, volunteers make pre-season repairs to the bridge. File photo from the Green Mountain Roamers
The University of Vermont’s Community News Service journalism internship program reports for Vermont news outlets including the Waterbury Roundabout.