ENTERPRISE — Dr. Nick West, a board certified family physician, is hanging his doctor’s shingle and taking new patients at Winding Waters Medical Clinic, Enterprise.
Fortunately the solution was standing right beside the fast-flowing mountain stream.
And it was big, too.
Fixing the problem required toppling several tons of Douglas-fir in dangerously steep terrain and then wrestling the obstinate mass into place.
All this in a spot where winter is the longest season.
Little wonder that constructing a new bridge across BC Creek, along the Chief Joseph Mountain trail, spanned parts of two years.
The single-log bridge, with hefty rails on each side, was finished Saturday, May 22.
Its completion gives hikers an easier, and safer, route to one of the grandest vistas in the Wallowas, from the shoulder of Chief Joseph Mountain.