It was mostly wrapped wire cables with ropes and wooden slats on most bridges you crossed. Depending upon how long the span was you had to worry about the winds and storms a lot. You only really wanted to cross them on a non-windy day. Though most were about 3 feet across as you walked on them you may or may not want to take off your backpack to carry it across because the bridge might move under the weight of the people crossing it and usually I only wanted the 5 of us in my own family crossing at the same time even though people might get on the bridge at either end and not worry about the weight factor depending upon who they were too.
So, I would say crossing a suspension bridge when I and my family did it was about as safe as riding a bicycle or motorcycle through Nepal or India. (Which means you had to think about this a little before you did it.)
But, it looks like many of the newer suspension bridges now (looking at these pictures) are more metal cables and less wood and ropes built upon cables which means less wood or rope rotting out on older suspension bridges while you are walking across them.
The point is we all survived crossing up to 100 of these things in the Himalayas Trekking there from about 5000 feet elevation to 10,000 feet elevation. I remember one suspension bridge only being 1 foot wide at your feet where you basically were walking on a stream of blocks of wood built on top of mostly metal cables so it went from 1 foot wide at your feet to 2 to 3 feet wide where you held on for dear life as you crossed a deep canyon with a stream or river below.
So, ,wearing a full 75 to 100 pound backpack you had to be very careful on many of these bridges and maybe it was safer to remove your backpack so you wouldn't be so top heavy and flip off a bridge in a wind or when someone stepped on the bridge wrong and in moved in a direction you didn't expect at that moment.
Also, richer people take helicopters these days because they have to hike and cross less suspension bridges. But, remember the winds in the Himalayas riding a helicopter might be a problem too especially at altitude. But, it's also true many helipads for landing helicopters have been built in remote places in the Himalayas now too.
But, mostly roads don't exist much in the Himalayas because they would just wash away every year in the Monsoon rains around this time of year through the summers.
Begin quote from:
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