Kawazu-Nanadaru Loop Bridge in Kawazu Japan

How do you build a bridge on a mountainside when the grade is so steep that a linear ramp isn’t possible?

Build a loop, and if one is not enough, build two. This is what engineers did when the built the Kawazu-Nanadaru
Loop Bridge, also known as the Japanese Double loop spiral, in Kawazu, Japan.

This double spiral brings cars up and down a full 45 meters while being seemingly suspended in a valley between
two mountainsides. The spirals measure 80m in diameter and the whole ramp section is 1.1km long.


Source 





Kawazu-Nanadaru Loop Bridge in Kawazu Japan.kmz (1.1 KB)

I went down this puppy one dark and very stormy night about 20 or so years ago. It was during the tail-end of a typhoon (probably a tropical depression by that time) that had completely ruined the first day of a 3 day bus tour, that I had selected from America as a treat for myself and my late wife's mother. Traffic was greatly delayed and we had missed all but one of our scheduled stops (and that to a souvenir shop!) . The driver lurched on to get us to the hot springs hotel in Shimoda where we were scheduled to spend the night. I bought the tickets because there were things along the way that I had wanted to see, but I knew nothing of the loop bridge. As we spun our way down, there were two, maybe even three, very loud thunder claps, with brilliant flashes. It was a bit like an amusement park ride, where you think you are safe, but you're not quite sure.

Thanks for stirring a wonderful memory of a disastrous trip!

Google Earth view:

view from above

I have seen things like that on Second Life, but this is real!

Google Earth's van has been round it. Exploring it in Google Earth is liable to a common sort of "Google Earth driving accident" :: i.e. hopping off the road onto a nearby road.