Sa Teekh Wa Bridge, 2006

Chewuch River Winthrop, WA

USE:  Pedestrian

SPAN:  222'

TRAVEL WIDTH :  5' 6"

TOWERS:  40' tall, A 588 Weathering Steel

ANCHORS:  16' Wide Deadman Anchors

MAINLINES:  1-1/2" Galvanized Structural Strand

Sa Teekh Wa Bridge is located on the Chewuch River near its confluence with the Methow River in the western frontier town of Winthrop, WA. The bridge is the gateway to Winthrop North Village , a new residential development founded with a strong conservation and environment ethic. The original vision for the North Village development was that of John and Michelle Larsen, local entrepreneurs who launched the project and donated the land on which the bridge rests.

Winthrop is the western portal of the famed North Cascade Highway and was founded in the early 1890's to provision enterprising prospectors in the Slate Creek and other mining districts in this wildly remote and mountainous area. Stunning in its natural beauty and sporting a plethora of modern recreation and adventure sport pursuits, Winthrop anchors the Methow Valley (as the area has come to be known) and is a magnet for travelers and 21st Century recreationists. To understand the allure of the Methow it is essential to have an appreciation of how proximate Wilderness and Civilization are to one another in this magical valley and of how both became woven inextricably in the fabric of history.

The Chewuch (or Chewack) River of North Central Washington State has its origins in a mountain redoubt deep in the Pasayten Wilderness. Lying hard against the US/Canadian border, the Pasayten is a remote region constituting the eastern flank of the North Cascades. There are no roads to the place where the tumbling waters of Cathedral and Remmel Creeks conjoin to form the Chewuch, only trails that have been traveled by the most enterprising souls over the millennia.

While today's hikers and backpackers in the Pasayten follow in the familiar footsteps of pioneer outfitters, prospectors and trappers, these early mountain adventurers were late comers to the Chewuch River drainage. Somewhere in pre-history, a branch of the Salishan family of tribes emerged to occupy the Chewuch drainage and that of the nearby Methow (Met- How) River. These Native Americans came to be known by early whites as the 'Methow Tribe', though the name they called themselves is lost to time. Avid hunters and fishers, especially of salmon, these people drank from the Chewuch in ancient times, and without doubt first explored the cirque of peaks---Remmel, Amphitheater, Apex, and Saddle Mountains---from which the Chewuch springs forth, though they would have known these mountains by different names.

The Chewuch River flows a scant 45 miles southward to it's confluence with the Methow River at the town of Winthrop, on the way metaphorically passing from the Wilderness of pre-history to the modernity of the 21st Century. Few things evoke the march of time like the flowing of a river and the Chewuch has witnessed the transition of the West from pre-history, through the flourishing of native cultures, the ages of exploration, industral revolution, and adventure tourism. The Methow Tribe have left their mark on the landscape but their language, a Salish dialect known as nselxcin, has become a vanishing tongue, with fewer than 500 speakers remaining in the world. In nselxcin the word Chewuch reputedly means 'many salmon' and the nearby Methow River was known as Buttlemulleemauch or 'salmon falls river". The name fittingly chosen for the bridge, Sa Teekh Wa, was that of a summer gathering place or camp on the Chewuch, adjacent to the north landing of the new bridge.

Today, the Town of Winthrop enthusiastically embraces both its past and an evolving future. Sa Teekh Wa Bridge reflects this long view, and resides at the north end of Town providing pedestrian and utility access to the future emerging at Winthrop North Village and the celebrated past at new Sa Teekh Wa Park, located at the site of the ancient tribal camp. With the bridge in place, Winthrop North Village residents have direct pedestrian access to the conveniences and services in Town while residents and visitors to Winthrop alike have access to the new Park. Development paired with stewardship creates a present where the past, future, and the environment all win. At Winthrop North Village the developers are in the vanguard defining a new western residential paradigm with their pledge "to encourage a sense of community and contribute aesthetically, socially, and ecologically to the Town of Winthrop and the Methow Valley."

Cable Stay Construction