Tapoco – The Yellow Creek Falls Trail now has a new footbridge, which replaced the old one that had fallen into disrepair and had become unsafe.
Hoot Gibbs – who does volunteer maintenance on the trail – had become concerned about the condition of the bridge. The trail is on property owned by the National Wild Turkey Federation and Gibbs was able to get word to Patrick “Cully” McCurdy, District Biologist for the Federation.
McCurdy quickly got things going and a local firm – C&W Contracting, LLC of Robbinsville – was awarded a contract to tear out the old bridge and replace it.
Cody Carpenter of C&W Contracting and Cory Snider of C.M. Supply designed the plan for the bridge. Carpenter’s crew – consisting of Chris Massey, Chais Wright, Logan Carson, Caleb Turpin and Wade Hamilton – completed the project in 4 ½ days.
Carpenter said that the most exhaustive part of the project was the fact that everything had to be hand-carried to the site, including two steel beams that weighed 386 pounds each, and 24 bags of cement that weighed 84 pounds each.
Carpenter added that once all the material was carried in, everything fell into place.