Washington State Closed A 103-year-old Bridge. Mount Rainier Park Access Is Now Limited.

A portion of Mount Rainier National Park will be inaccessible due to an indefinite bridge closure outside of the park.

On April 14, the Washington State Department of Transportation announced that the State Route 165 Carbon River Fairfax Bridge is closed until further notice.

The bridge, built more than 100 years ago, showed new deterioration on steel supports in the preliminary findings of a recent inspection, according to the announcement.

The bridge provided access to areas of the national park that are no longer accessible to the public.

The single-lane bridge on Route 165 led to the Mowich Lake Entrance and the Carbon River Ranger Station in the northwest corner of the park.

The National Park Service map shows the Mowich Lake Road is closed, restricting access to the Paul Peak Trailhead, the Mountain Meadows and the Wonderland Trail, the map shows.

The bridge closure follows three previously imposed weight restrictions on the bridge since 2009, according to WSDOT. The average age of the state-owned bridges in Washington is 51 years, while this one is 103 years old.

"There is no funding available to replace the bridge at this point," the release stated. "Years of deferred preservation work due to limited preservation funding resulted in the updated weight restrictions and now the indefinite closure."

USA TODAY reached out to the National Park Service for this story.

Kinsey Crowley is a trending news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at kcrowley@gannett.com. Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @kinseycrowley.bsky.social.