A rickety suspension bridge spanning Nepal’s Dudh Kosi River swayed dizzily in wind roaring down from the world’s tallest peaks as I pondered a crossing strategy.

My initial plan involved inching along shaky wooden slats with a death grip on a rope railing, the only barrier to keep me from sailing over the edge and plunging into roiling rapids 100 feet or so below.

Halfway across, though, I heard Sherpas shouting. A team of runaway yaks thundered toward the bridge, kicking up an enormous dust cloud. They would not stop, or even slow down, for a hapless hiker.

I abandoned my cautious gait and ran like hell, barely making it to the other side of the chasm before the beasts galloped past.

I thought of that adventure from years past the other morning while running in an area about as far away as possible, literally and figuratively, from the Himalayas: White Plains, New York.

I had been visiting my sister and brother-in-law and decided to start the day as I almost always do, with a jog of an hour or so. I expected to be running on city and suburban sidewalks, but much to my delight came upon a paved path along the Bronx River.

I loped along for a couple of miles, the gurgle of the swift-flowing river all but drowned out by the rush of commuter traffic on the nearby Bronx River Parkway and the roar of Metro North trains to Manhattan. As I approached a narrow footbridge, I noticed yellow tape and a warning sign blocked the route: “Bridge out. Path closed.”

Damn.

I didn’t want to turn around just yet, hoping to make it at least to the next town, Hartsdale, and so executed a maneuver I’ve performed virtually every time I’ve confronted a similar impediment: I ducked beneath the barrier in order to assess my options.

Wading was out of the question. Though the river appeared shallow, probably hip-deep at best, it was moving at a pretty good clip. Plus, the air temperature hovered in the low 30s.

Then I noticed that though the bridge had been heavily damaged, likely by recent flooding, it had not been destroyed. The main girders remained intact, and only parts of the decking had washed away. Across one 8-foot gap a fellow traveler, someone after my own heart, had placed a 2-by-12 plank.

I nudged it with my toe. It seemed solid.

Then I considered worst-case scenarios: Plank breaks, or I lose my balance, and tumble into the river. Distance: About 6 feet, probably not high enough to break a bone unless I landed on a hidden rock.

I’d have to limp back, muddy and bloody, and confirm to members of my family what they have known all along: I am an idiot.

I looked around for a long stick that I could use for balance like a tightrope walker, but no such luck, so I employed the undignified maneuver of crawling. This would not only increase my balance by lowering my center of gravity but also reduce the distance between my head and any submerged rock if misfortune befell me.

Luckily, no stampeding yaks decided to make a break for it at that exact time.

A moment later I scrambled back to my feet and resumed running. To pass the time I recalled other challenging crossings.

Fording Big Wilson Stream on the first day of the Hundred-Mile Wilderness on the Appalachian Trail in Maine required taking off 60-pound backpacks, balancing them on our heads, and wading waist-deep over slippery rocks in a swift current.

Crossing one roaring stream at 13,000 feet in the Andes involved a 6-foot leap of faith that I pondered nervously for at least 15 minutes.

The shaky Dudh Kosi bridge in Nepal at least had been wooden, but an equally scary episode took place on a snow bridge just over a crevasse on the headwall of Tuckerman Ravine below New Hampshire’s Mount Washington.

A helicopter had just plucked the corpse of a fallen hiker from the fissure, and we had to shuffle along only yards from the mishap. When I finally made it across I realized that a friend who I thought was right behind me had frozen in terror, so I had to go back, grip his hand, and repeat the performance.

I no longer climb on the headwall in winter.

So, all things considered, the White Plains adventure was a walk in the park, even though I had to cross the broken bridge again on the run back from Hartsdale.

Safely back in the condo, I related the tale to Diane, my sister, who knows me well.

She rolled her eyes when I told her about my good fortune in discovering the plank that someone had thoughtfully placed across the missing deck slats.

“Another crazy person,” she said.