Suspension bridges offer thrills that stretch from refined to rugged

Call it a state of suspended animation.

We stood frozen midspan as a gaggle of giggling pre-teens raced toward us and hopped aboard the suspension bridge. They stomped and skipped on skittish floorboards. They jerked on quivering steel cables. They rocked one way and we rolled another.

When the kids stopped for a minute to make echoes into the gorge below, we came to life, lurching toward terra firma before they could set nervous Capilano Bridge heaving again.

There are two wobbly suspension bridges above the deeply chiseled river channels that cut into the mountains on the north side of Vancouver. Capilano and Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge, less than five miles to the east, could hardly differ more.

Before you set foot on Capilano, the more famous, Disney-esque one, you pass a photo-history display, a forest of totem poles, some bogus native carvings and a world-class gift shop.

To get onboard the Lynn Canyon bridge, you walk a forested path past a plaque honoring "Jacqui," who was accidentally killed in 1982 by a rock that fell from a cliff above the riverbank where she was sunbathing. And the pamphlets you pick up at the Ecology Centre warn: "Do not feed the bears."

Both of the footbridges shimmy better than your sister Kate, and either one can give a person with acrophobia a bonus case of apoplexy.

But Capilano has all the superlatives. It was built in 1889, is 450 feet across and 230 feet above the roaring Capilano River. The Lynn Canyon bridge opened 23 years later, is 135 feet across and 164 feet above burbling Lynn Creek.

After you've crossed Capilano, you get a certificate proclaiming the crossing an "act of daring bravado" and giving you bragging rights for the next two years.

After you've crossed Lynn Canyon, you get to hike along the river's edge through sometimes-rugged terrain populated by pileated woodpeckers, Douglas squirrels, blacktailed deer and the occasional cougar or black bear.

Capilano's allure

Capilano claims to be British Columbia's first and most-popular tourist attraction. It's always been privately owned, although the forest on either side of the bridge is a government preserve.

The first version of the bridge was a rickety affair of cedar planks and hemp rope cables built by a settler, George Grant Mackay. Mackay's city friends took to making regular visits to the suspension bridge, crossing Burrard Inlet aboard a boat called the S.S. Senator and hiking (long skirts and all) to Mackay's retreat.

The Coast Salish people called it the "laughing bridge" because of the sound it made when wind whipped through the canyon. The name of the canyon itself comes from a Squamish word that means "beautiful flowing waters."

The bridge has been rebuilt three times since Mackay entertained there. And while we felt like the present version might snap as it squirmed through the antics of half a dozen kids the day we visited, it's made to withstand 180 tons of people.

That's the equivalent, according to promotional material, of a line of people standing shoulder to shoulder the bridge's full length, each one with five other people standing on their shoulders. It's anchored by 13 tons of concrete on each end — the equivalent of four elephants on each side. The canyon is so wide two Boeing 747s could fly through wingtip to wingtip. With room to spare.

The bridge has been monitored by cameras since 1999, when a toddler fell over the side. The baby suffered only minor injuries — her fall was broken by tree branches and thick brush beneath the bridge. Authorities investigated whether the mother was at fault but did not file charges in the case.

When we were there, in the first days of winter, a gray mist formed over the canyon, lending mystery to the rumbling river far below the bridge. Winter is quiet time at Capilano — 80 percent of the 800,000 visitors who come to stumble across the bridge each year do so from April to October.

In summer, eagles sometimes wing their way downriver under the bridge. Singing groups and native dancers come to entertain in the gardens leading to the bridge and guides are available to answer questions about the history of the place and the ongoing effort by provincial and national governments to stall erosion in the gorge.

The 10 totem poles that grace the gardens leading to the bridge were planted by local carvers. But here and there on the grounds are life-sized carvings of red cedar that aren't so local. They were created in the 1930s by two Danes, Aage Madsen and Karl Hansen, who offered to carve images of Canada's First Nations people in exchange for food and lodging.

We stopped and did a double-take in front of a cigar-store Indian guarding the door to the gift shop.

"They'd never seen a real First Nations person," Ashleah Wilson, a Capilano spokesman, explained. "So they carved images like the ones they'd seen in movies."

Once you've braved the bridge and gotten to the far side, there are interactive displays of forest flora and fauna, shallow trout ponds and a tenderfoot's version of a forest hike — five minutes around the trout ponds, past the giant 500-year-old Douglas fir and you're back to the bridge.

Hiking Lynn Canyon

The Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge experience is not so tame as that.

Although this is a municipal park, a network of rugged trails threads through the forest along the banks of the creek and higher up the mountainside. Some of the trails connect with the Baden-Powell Centennial Trail system, a challenging 30-mile route across the North Vancouver District mountains that's named for the founder of the Boy Scouts.

"You can hike the whole corridor to Burrard Inlet if you want from here," said Scot Kissinger, who's in charge of environmental education at the ecology center on the grounds.

"It can be very strenuous hiking if that's what you want. There are stairs in places, but in some places there are as many as 200, and that can be pretty rugged."

Lynn Canyon might live in Capilano's shadow when it comes to size and age, but it shines for lovers of nature.

The canyon walls drop just as precipitously to the watery floor. Frothy waterfalls end in deep-green pools. And the smell of musty earth and fir bark permeates the air.

As for wildlife, well, Kissinger presides over a miniature zoo of stuffed raccoons, martens, flying squirrels and red-breasted sapsuckers that were killed by cars or pets in the park and brought into the ecology center for display.

But what about those black bears the signs warn against?

"We don't have them often," Kissinger said. "But we do have them. This year they've had plenty of feed, lots of berries for them to forage for. But a few years ago we took 30 out of here and placed them in more remote areas."

If you spot one, says a brochure that Kissinger hands to visitors, stay calm.

If you can't manage that, run for the suspension ridge and start it rocking and rolling.

Sally Macdonald is a retired Seattle Times reporter; John Macdonald is a retired Seattle Times travel editor.