Road Trip - Natural Bridges and Arches

The next leg of our journey brought us to Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah. Neither of us had ever been there before so we were looking forward to seeing something new. The park basically consists of a canyon where water has eroded holes in the sandstone, creating three rare natural bridges. We enjoyed the small visitors center where we were able to learn all about the geological forces that shaped the area. Even though it was still extremely cold and windy, we decided to take a six mile hike down the canyon, passing under two of the bridges along the way. It was a really nice hike along the river and the temperature was actually pleasant since the canyon blocked the wind.


This is Sipapu bridge. In this picture, I think it looks like the shoulders and neck of a giant dinosaur.

The trail down the canyon here was the steepest in the park and we had to go down a couple of wooden ladders. I thought this was a pretty extrodinary feat until I saw the pictures of the hike that Kathi Griffith's family took this week. Those ladders kicked our ladder's butt's!



We also took pictures of interesting things we saw along the way.




The second bridge was called Kachina Bridge and it was much more massive. It is considered the youngest of the three because of the thickness of it's span. While we were there we encountered a professor and his class. He told us all about the pictographs on the side of the canyon there. They were pretty faint and located high up on the wall of the canyon, so we might have missed them if he hadn't been there to point them out. He asked us if we noticed anything unusul about the drawings. After examining them for a moment, we noticed what seemed to be the picture of a dinosaur. He went on to explain that such primitive drawings have been found in many places throughout the world, and that he doubted the current theory that dinosaurs and humans never coexisted. I don't know about that...


Next we made our way to Moab and Arches National Park. There we hiked to Delicate Arch, made famous on Utah's license plate. I had never done that hike before and I really liked it, but I was definitely glad we didn't have Trent with us. A lot of the trail was bare slickrock sloping shaply down into the canyons. The Arch was awesome - a lot larger than I had envisioned. There were about a dozen photographers there to photograph it that evening, along with a couple who got engaged. The guy got down on one knee under the arch at sunset and proposed. Everyone cheered and clapped when she said yes. It was so cute!


The next morning we drove to Double Arch and the Windows.



Next on the agenda - temple pictures!