Spirea Boardwalk

The Spirea Nature Trail located in Golden Ears Provincial Park was requiring maintenance on its wooden boardwalk structures. This accessible trail wanders through a unique wetland ecosystem crossing over marsh several times.

The Spirea Nature Trail and boardwalks are located in a sensitive ecosystem. We minimized ground disturbance by accessing old concrete pillars and supports to be reused for the upgraded boardwalk. Tarps and catch basins were used during demolition to catch all of the debris from the old structures. All lumber cutting was performed in the parking lot so as to not add debris to the sensitive areas. We also had an environmental monitor onsite to ensure best practices were followed.

There were also sections of our work area that got flagged as potentially significant archeological areas. We minimized ground disturbance by reusing old footings and placed rip rap to support existing retaining walls. An archaeological monitor onsite when ground disturbance could not be avoided.

BC Parks chose to reuse the old metal railings from the original boardwalks but they needed the old lead paint removed and then to be repainted. These railings were full-length and previously built in place. All work on the railings had to be done offsite to reduce the potential contaminants in the sensitive ecosystem. This required a coordinated effort by the team. We cut and labeled the rails into short sections to be transported offsite using a small tracked machine and lumber carts. We then shipped them to a company that could strip the hazardous lead paint and provided a numbered tracking sheet to reassemble them upon completion.

One of the bridges to be redecked was a large metal pedestrian bridge spanning a creek. The bridge was missing diagonal braces which meant the structure swayed and twisted under pedestrian traffic. We worked with engineers to create new, low impact diagonal bracing which utilized existing bolt holes in the frame, eliminating the need to weld or drill over the water.

This was a great project for our team in a beautiful location and we were happy to make the trail more accessible!