Pochuck Quagmire Bridge

The Pochuck Quagmire Bridge, also called the Pochuck Creek Suspension, was constructed in 1996 out of class 1 southern yellow pine lumber and one-inch galvanized steel wire rope.

The Pochuck Quagmire was described as a “sea of dark, oozing, quivering, leg-sucking black muck with rank weeds and lush, slimy water plants.” Therefore, it was not passible, and hikers were required to walk along a busy road for about 2.1 miles to detour the creek. It was therefore decided that a boardwalk and bridge would be constructed through the floodplain. This boardwalk twists and turns, so that the distance of the Appalachian Trail would not be changed.

Other options were considered at this location, such as a center pier bridge, simple beam bridge, arch bridge, and truss bridge, but due to the environmentally sensitive requirements of the area, the suspension bridge was chosen instead. It was set high above the river due to the frequent logjams and flooding. The design required that all construction material and equipment would be carried to the site, so only hand tools would be available for construction.

GPU Energy joined the project and volunteered to provide, transport, install, and guy 40-foot-tall transmission poles to serve as the catenary cable towers. This caused some additional complications for the rest of the bridge, because the connections between the round poles and the flat dimension lumber are more complicated. Therefore, they conservatively ignored the bracing in design to account for the weak connections. Backstays with helical anchors were used to brace these cable towers.

The deck truss was prefabricated and assembled in 20 ft sections off-site at the Wawayanda State Park maintenance yard. Each section was then trucked in by the NJ Forest Fire Service and were installed using “come-along” winch hoists.