Carson’s Crossing Bridge Extension for Adaptive Cycling - Gold Award Project
by Alyssa Quick
August 2023
My name is Alyssa Quick. I am a member of Girl Scout Troop 1814. I started Girl Scouts as a Daisy in kindergarten and continued to move up through the Girls Scout levels of Brownie (2nd & 3rd ), Junior (4th & 5th ), Cadette (6th , 7th, & 8th ), Senior (9th &10th ). I am now an Ambassador (11th &12th ). I earned the Girl Scout Bronze Award as a Junior and the Girl Scout Silver Award as a Cadette. The highest-level achievement in Girl Scouts is the Gold Award which was created in 1916 as the Golden Eaglet of Merit and has evolved through the years into the Gold Award since 1980.
For my Gold Award Project, I approached the Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve rangers to help identify a project they were looking to accomplish that aligned with a Gold Award Project I wanted to tackle. I wanted to build a bridge in the canyon and wanted it to be something that would last and be useful for everyone. We landed on a project that would extend the Carson’s Crossing bridge/walkway all the way across to the south side of the canyon, and that would make it crossable for the adaptive cyclists. This was challenging because there were a lot of existing roots and a lot of unlevel ground.
This project started for me in April of 2022 with concept and ideas, and submitting and getting approval from both Girl Scouts and the Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve rangers. Several meetings at the Carson’s Crossing site were held with Ranger Melanie to work out the details and the scope of the project. The project began officially with budgeting for the project and then reaching out to local businesses to raise the funds for the materials. A local business owner and cyclist, Dale Watkins, who is the President of Sheffield Platters in Mira Mesa, donated the money for the wood and screws for building the bridge segments. This got us started. Work began in November 2022 with the purchase of the wood and recruiting neighbors and friends to help with the building of the bridge sections in our backyard. Many late-night hours were spent cutting and making the bottom box sections for the bridge and cutting the remaining wood for installation on site.
On December 30, 2022, the box sections and pre-cut wood were all loaded up and transported to the canyon along with the installation crew of eight people only to have to abort due to the rainy conditions and damage that would be done to the trails while transporting everything to the installation site. This was a setback, but after a long and very rainy winter and spring and a very long school year, a second attempt was made on July 7, 2023. This time we had a much smaller crew, but we had some help from Ranger Gina Washington and Ranger Melanie Fontana, and we had success. It was a full day of clearing up all the debris, cutting back and making room for the bridge sections, installing the box sections and the planks on top, then cutting and installing additional boards for the transition between the sections. We even had the pleasure of running into 2 of the local adaptive cyclists on the trail. It was exciting to see them in action and know that this contribution to the Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve will be getting some good use.
So, what is adaptive cycling? Adaptive Cycling is really a very simple concept: modify and adapt cycles to suit an individual rider. There are endless adaptations that can be made to a cycle depending on the need of the rider. A lot of research and development in recent years has produced a variety of adaptive cycling equipment, making it possible for nearly anyone to ride.
This includes road and off-road cycles. So that just leaves us with the need for trails that are accessible for these off-road adaptive cycles.
My Gold Award project provides one more step in that direction. The Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve has been working to make more trails and all crossings accessible for adaptive cyclists. Carson’s Crossing has now been added to that list.
Here are a few pictures of the project and of Carson’s Crossing before, during, and after. We also had opportune meeting with adaptive cyclists on the trail. So go check out the new bridge extension over Carson’s Crossing.
