Celebrate the opening of the new 572-foot bridge over the White River that will connect King and Pierce Counties via the Foothills Trail Saturday.

The celebration begins 11 a.m. Saturday (September 28) on the Buckley side of the bridge. The Foothills Coalition, parks departments in both counties, and the cities of Enumclaw and Buckley are hosting the event.

Until next summer, the bridge will mostly be useful for connecting Buckley and Enumclaw, which is a great outcome on its own. Congrats to folks in those communities because this will be a huge improvement over trying to walk or bike on the SR 410 bridge (Google Maps won’t even suggest walking on SR 410, so it currently sends people on a 30-mile walk just to travel the 3.5 miles between the two communities). These two places will be a comfortable 20-minute bike ride apart.

But the larger benefit will come when Pierce County Parks plan to finish work on two trail bridges, one between Buckley and South Prairie and one between South Prairie and Orting. So next summer, the Foothills trail should connect from Puyallup to Enumclaw along one of the most scenic rail trails in the world.

Because most of the new bridge’s structure is on the King County side of the river, King County funded $12.8 million of the $16 million project thanks to the King County Parks Levy. The rest of the funding came from Pierce County Parks and the City of Buckley.