Snow bridge

Since we had multiple snow days followed by the weekend, it seemed like the ideal time to assign a snow related project. I honestly didn't want to leave my home but this project forced me to do that and actual build something. Of all the options given, I chose to build a snow bridge.

 I began this bridge on last Friday in the afternoon. To construct this bridge, I decided to utilize the pathway that leads from my garage to my patio since it was a wide enough to fulfill the requirement of being a three foot bridge. I placed two, plastic trash cans next to each other in the middle of the pathway. I then packed on about two feet high of snow for the entire length of the bridge. My idea was to pack the snow and then remove the trash cans once it seems compact enough. I left the bridge to sit for a couple days since I knew the weather was going to stay pretty constant, meaning there's not going to be a sudden heat wave.

On Sunday I decided to remove the trash cans from the structure and hope for the best. The bridge seemed like it was going to hold up, but I wasn't sure since this was a new project to me. I had my camera ready for the final photos, and I was pleasantly surprised that the bridge was extremely stable. As a final test, I tried to walk across the bridge to see how much weight it could support, and it actually was a success.

Overall I was pleased with the entire process and result of this project. If I were to redo this project, I would try to increase both the area of the entire bridge and try to challenge the max weight it can support. This would be a great project to assign a group of people to attempt together because it takes both patience and cooperation for the final product to be successful. This bridge could be used if someone needed a way to get across a river or a plot of land they didn't want to cross. If the bridge was done on a large scale it could also serve the purpose keep whatever was underneath the bridge protected from the weather. With traditional bridges, people use them to get across bodies of water or other roads to provide even more accessibility. The same idea could still be used for a snow bridge since, as shown in the photo below, it can support the weight of at least one person. This could be especially useful in northern climates where there's almost always a harsh wind chill.