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Rainbow Bridge National Monument
Even though Rainbow Bridge is not one of the "Seven Wonders of the World," many believe it should be. The rock arch is so big, so marvelously carved and so beautifully accented, it's hard to think of it in any other terms than as a "wonder" — natural or otherwise.
Rainbow Bridge reflects off Lake Powell.
Kristan Jacobsen, Deseret News |
Rainbow Bridge National Monument is located on the shore of Lake Powell about 50 miles up from Glen Canyon Dam just outside Page, Ariz. The huge dam backs up the Colorado River, forming the 135-mile-long reservoir.
Rainbow is the largest natural bridge in the world, spanning 278 feet, reaching up 309 feet from the entrenched canyon below, and is 42 feet thick and 33 feet wide. Many references point out that the U.S. Capitol would fit beneath the span.
The region's American Indians, including the San Juan Paiutes and White Mesa Paiutes, but especially the Navajos, consider Rainbow Bridge to be sacred and a place of worship. Seeing it and standing beneath it makes it easy to understand why the Native Americans hold the bridge as a sacred place — and why they fight so hard for its protection
There is an attempt by the National Park Service to preserve the sanctity of the bridge. That's why swimming isn't allowed, and commercial filming is closely monitored.
About 300,000 of Lake Powell's 4 million visitors each year will walk the half-mile from the boat docks to the arch. About half of those tourists are from outside the United States.
Most reach the bridge via a 50-mile boat ride from Wahweap Marina to the south and Bullfrog and Halls Crossing marinas to the north. Vendors at the marinas offer full-day or half-day boat tours.
Before there was a Lake Powell, however, seeing the arch involved a 14-mile hike or horseback ride. Hikers, with a permit from the Navajo Nation, can still access those trail heads from the Navajo Mountain Trading Post or abandoned Rainbow Lodge.
Tourists hike to Rainbow Bridge from boats on Lake Powell.
Ravell Call, Deseret News |
Rainbow Bridge was probably first seen by white people in the 1880s during a gold rush in Glen Canyon. Miners swarmed over the area seeking the precious metal and without a doubt ventured up the canyon. None of them, however, seemed compelled to share the news of this startling geologic oddity with the rest of the country.
Rainbow Bridge, brochures and Park Service studies note, was more permanently discovered on Aug. 14, 1909. Byron Cummings, dean of arts and sciences at the University of Utah, and W.B. Douglass, a government surveyor, had heard rumors of a great stone arch and set out from Kayenta, Ariz., at the same time, leading separate exploration parties. Eventually they combined forces and were led to the landmark by Jim Mike (then known as Mike's Boy), a Paiute, and Nasja-Begay, variously described as a Paiute and a Navajo.
Mike — who lived over a century, passing away in 1977 — is now generally credited with finding the massive bridge in about 1900 while seeking pasture for a herd of horses.
Publicity following the Douglass-Cummings expedition gave Rainbow Bridge, tucked away in an obscure canyon below Navajo Mountain in the midst of the desolate Colorado Plateau, international renown.
President William Howard Taft proclaimed the wonder a national monument, setting aside a 160-acre tract on May 30, 1910.
For more information check out www.nps.gov/rabr/.
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