Most mornings this summer, the regulars on the Westbrook spur trail have noticed something different at the bottom of the hill. For three years, reaching the far side of Whitemud Creek at Rainbow Valley meant sharing a narrow shoulder with cars crossing the Rainbow Valley Bridge, or timing your walk around whichever lane the city had shut down that month. As of July 8, 2026, that's no longer the arrangement. The City of Edmonton's Terwillegar Drive Stage Two project opened a dedicated Rainbow Valley Pedestrian Bridge that runs parallel to the road bridge, giving walkers and cyclists their own span for the first time.
That single fact changes more than a commute. It changes what the loop out of Westbrook Estate actually feels like, and it's worth understanding before you assume the ravine is just "back to normal."
What Changed, and What Didn't
The instinct is to read this as a return to how things were before construction started in the summer of 2023. It isn't. Before the project, pedestrians crossing at Rainbow Valley used the same road bridge as cars, just on a marked shoulder. The city's own Stage Two page confirms that the westbound Rainbow Valley Bridge is now fully complete and carrying two-way traffic while crews finish the eastbound span, expected later this year. The pedestrian bridge sits apart from both. It's a structure Westbrook Estate never had, not a repair of one it used to.
That distinction matters if you've been avoiding the ravine crossing since 2023 and assumed you'd just be trading one round of construction cones for another. You won't. The eastbound roadway work continues, and the city notes landscaping across the corridor won't wrap up until 2027, but the pedestrian route itself is finished and open now, independent of whatever is still happening to the car lanes beside it.
The Walk, Mapped Out
Start where most Westbrook Estate walkers already start: the spur that climbs out of the neighborhood into Whitemud Park. It's a short, steep push before the trail levels into the broader South Trail system that runs the length of the ravine, past access points at Bulyea and Aspen Gardens before it reaches the stretch below the Derrick Golf and Winter Club, where the fairways sit visible on the opposite bank.
Late summer is a good time to notice details on this section that get lost earlier in the season. Wildflowers and tall shrubs crowd the trail edges by August, and the creek itself runs the quiet, tea-colored current that gives the ravine its particular hush, according to trail notes compiled by Komoot. The River Valley Alliance, a nonprofit that documents the city's river valley trail network, describes the Rainbow Valley South stretch as an easy grade with several footbridge crossings over Whitemud Creek along the way, roughly an hour to ninety minutes if you're walking rather than making a workout of it.
Where the trail meets Rainbow Valley Road, the new pedestrian bridge is what makes the rest of the loop worth doing without checking a construction schedule first.
What's Waiting on the Other Side
Rainbow Valley isn't just a crossing point. It's a small cluster of things Westbrook Estate residents have had reduced reason to visit on foot while the bridge work was underway. Now that the crossing doesn't require crossing car lanes, it's worth remembering what's actually there:
- Snow Valley Aerial Park, a ropes and zipline course operated on the same site
- Snow Valley Target & Mini Golf, a casual stop for anyone walking with kids
- Creekside Eats, a food option sitting right at the campground
- Whitemud Creek Mining Co., a gold-panning attraction on the campground grounds
- Rainbow Valley Campground, the only campground inside Edmonton's city limits
That last one has a longer local history than most people realize. The campground has been run by Snow Valley Ski Club, a nonprofit, since 1994, though the club itself dates back further. It was established in 1953 and registered as a nonprofit in 1961, and people were informally skiing the hill as early as 1948, according to the organization's own account. Whitemud Park, where all of this sits, is itself one piece of Edmonton's 88-kilometre river valley park system stretching from Devon to Fort Saskatchewan, which is a useful reminder that the ravine behind Westbrook Estate isn't an isolated green patch. It's a connected corridor, and the new bridge is one more link in it.
For anyone who boards a horse or has a kid in lessons, the Whitemud Equine Learning Centre sits further along the same trail system and hosts horse shows, dog shows, and Pony Club events through the summer, most of them free to watch. It's another example of how much is already happening in this ravine that a construction-era detour tends to obscure.
What's Still Not Finished
None of this means Stage Two is done. The eastbound Rainbow Valley Bridge is still under construction, and the city has been clear that full completion is expected sometime in 2026, with landscaping continuing into 2027. If you're planning a route that depends on driving to a trailhead rather than walking from home, expect the corridor to still carry some construction friction for car traffic even though the pedestrian crossing is finished.
That gap between what's done for walkers and what's still in progress for drivers is worth sitting with for a moment, because it's the kind of detail that only shows up if you're paying attention to a project in progress rather than reading a finished summary after the fact. The active transportation piece of this expansion, the part that serves people on foot, arrived well ahead of the roadway piece it sits beside.
A Ravine Worth Walking Again
Westbrook Estate has always had the advantage of backing directly onto this ravine system, with many of its largest lots sitting against either the creek or the Derrick Golf and Winter Club fairways. That proximity is part of what has made the neighborhood distinct for decades. What changed this July isn't the neighborhood's relationship to the ravine. It's the ease of using it the way residents always have, minus three summers of working around construction to do it.
If you've been putting off the loop past Rainbow Valley because the last time you tried it meant dodging traffic on a bridge shoulder, this is the summer to try it again. The crossing is different now, and it's worth seeing for yourself before the fall light changes what the trail looks like entirely.
For those thinking further ahead, about what a ravine-backing lot in a neighborhood like this is actually worth, or what it takes to build or renovate along Whitemud Creek's edge, Rimrock Real Estate has spent years working in exactly this kind of setting. If you're ready to talk through what that looks like for your own property, start your homebuilding journey with a team that already knows this ravine.