Placer County, California's Bridges: No Hands Bridge across the North Fork of the American River (2)

November 2012 (38.913 Degrees, -121.0416 Degrees) No Hands Bridge

We visited the 'No Hands' bridge before in 2009. Its a closed spandrel concrete arch bridge just downstream from yesterday's State Route 49 Bridge. It was originally built (in 1912) as part of a railway to transport limestone from a quarry in El Dorado County seven miles into Auburn. Its a five span bridge with three arch spans over the river. It has a 140 ft center span and a total length of 582 ft (with a 15 ft width). It was originally called the Mountain Quarries Railroad Bridge but when it began to be used by hikers it was renamed the 'No Hands' Bridge because it was missing handrails. The bridge has been rehabilitated as an historic structure, it now has modern handrails, and new placards call it the Mountain Quarries Bridge.

Placer County, California's Bridges: No Hands Bridge across the North Fork of the American River (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.