Closure of Stanley Park seawall near Siwash Rock due to sandstone slide (VIDEO)

A small portion of the Stanley Park seawall will be closed for a day next week to allow City crews to cleanup a sandstone slide.

On Thursday, large sandstone chunks from the cliffs just north of Siwash Rock collapsed onto the seawall’s bike path.

Some of the debris was cleaned up by Friday morning, allowing the pedestrian path to reopen. But the bike path remained closed in the section from Siwash Rock to the Lions Gate Bridge, according to the Park Board.

“It’s the sand wall exfoliating. So it sheds a layer, sheds a thin layer, this isn’t like big chunks of rock, this is thin like layers of an onion,” General Manager Maclolm Bromley told CKNW.

“And this is like the outer layer and as it dries and water gets behind it, it becomes unstable. So it’s sandstone, it’s not rock so it’s a softer material and that why it’s less stable.”

Geotechnicial experts are assessing the stability of the cliff and have determined that further rock scaling will have to be performed to remove any remaining loose rock. This will be performed next week: the seawall will be closed again on Monday beginning at 7:30 a.m. and reopen on Tuesday morning.

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