Each year, engineering students at West Point design a trail bridge for Fahnestock State Park. This year, the cadets were sent home because of the COVID-19 shutdown before the bridge could be completed, so Col. Brad Wambeke, the director of civil engineering at the academy, stepped in to finish the 24-foot span on the School Mountain Road trail with his daughter, Emilie Wambeke, a college student majoring in interior design. The bridge can be found on the School Mountain Road Trail.

The Open Space Institute provided more than $14,000 for the project, while the state parks department obtained permits and helped with site preparation and moving the structural beams. 

Each of the West Point bridges at Fahnestock — there are now three — has a distinct style. The 2020 bridge is an arch suspension bridge designed for equestrian use and to reduce stream-bank erosion.

Behind The Story

Type: News

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One reply on “Building a Bridge”

  1. My husband and I met Col. Wambeke on the trail one day after he had just somehow singlehandedly carted a pile of materials up the trail, and we were very impressed! The bridge is beautiful and a huge improvement over the scary little plank that crossed the water before he and his daughter did their magic.

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