Instagram Extinction

Have you heard of Vance Creek Bridge? It’s located a couple of hours outside of Seattle, Washington and was built as a railroad bridge for logging in the late 1920’s. According to articles on the web it’s the 2nd tallest railway trestle bridge in America. Spanning 347 above feet above Vance Creek and 422 feet long it offered panoramic scenery and beautiful views of Mt. Ranier on clear days.

If you’ve been on Instagram for a long time then you might recognize the hashtag for it, #ThatNWBridge. It was an attempt to keep the amazing place a secret but when people post beautiful photos and videos of a place I think it only adds to the allure of visiting such a place.

That’s what happened in the case of the privately owned Vance Creek Bridge.  Everyone wanted to climb the bridge and wherever there are a lot of people there is garbage and vandalism. Fires were started on the bridge, boards started missing and the owners eventually decided to block access to it.

There are other places that Instagram has made popular and some of those places are seeing too many visitors. There isn’t the infrastructure in place to service the high number of visitors. Some of the places don’t have toilet facilities and land managers are having to haul away human waste as well as garbage.

Should places be kept hidden? Do you know of any other places that have become extinct because of Instagram? Let me know!

 

 

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