Death-defying rope techs combat ice bombs on Metro Vancouver bridges

Have you ever wondered about the most jaw-dropping snow safety job in all of the Lower Mainland?

Many people are used to seeing plows and salt trucks on the roads, but the brave rope access technicians who take care of the region’s bridges are a whole other level of eye-opening.

The specially trained workers climb up to dizzying heights on the Alex Fraser and Port Mann bridges to make sure ice and snow don’t build up on the cables.

The technicians use ropes to get themselves to the very top of the bridges’ pillars before releasing collars that scrape accumulated ice and snow off the suspension cables.

Another shot of our Rope Access Technicians (also known as RATs in the industry) at the #AlexFraser on #BCHwy91.

Crews are monitoring cables and releasing collars periodically to remove accumulations on cables. Rolling right lane closures all day.

Traffic is slow moving NB. pic.twitter.com/ic3x7gw4Om

— Lower Mainland Dist. (@TranBC_LMD) January 17, 2024

Workers close certain lanes on bridges because of the falling ice. Scraping it off proactively prevents giant chunks from forming that can fall on drivers — colloquially known as “ice bombs.”

“When it’s time to reload, the technicians manually detach the collars from the cables, move them to the towers, and hoist them back up to the top of the cables using lifting bridles via winch and davits (crane-like devices) mounted on the bridge towers,” the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure says on its website.

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On the newer Port Mann Bridge, built in 2013, the collars can also be activated remotely.

Falling ice is a relatively rare risk because of the region’s warm climate, the Ministry says. But when a snowstorm does blow through, it’s important to clear them.

“The risk of falling ice and snow on the bridges – even the Alex Fraser, which is more than 30 years old – is relatively new. Most years, very little snow accumulates on the cables, or the majority of snow is light and blows off before accumulating enough to pose a threat. In fact, the three temporary closures that happened in the winter of 2016-17 were the very first on the Alex Fraser due to snow/ice forming on the cables.”

Rope access technicians are the same high-flying professionals who upgraded the lights on Science World’s dome last year.

So next time you’re driving over a bridge in the snow, now you know someone very high up on a rope may have helped make the drive smooth.