Aerial view, towards Navajo Mountain, Bridge Creek and Forbidding Creek Canyons, entrenched Navajo Sandstone, Lake Powell, Utah
Rainbow Bridge, sacred to the Navajo, attracts 100,000 visitors a year. It is 49 miles upstream from the Glen Canyon Dam, and is reached after a two hour boat ride from the Lake Powell Resort Marina. The bridge has a height of 88 m (290 ft) and span of 84 m (275 ft). The apex of the bridge is 13 m (42 ft) thick and 10 m (33 ft) wide. the west abutment is 61 m (200ft) wide and the east abutment 18 m (60 ft). The bridge was eroded in the lower beds of the Navajo Sandstone as the meanders of the Bridge Creek (partially controlled by the joint pattern in the Navajo Sandstone) became entrenched in response to the regional downcutting of the Colorado River. Flowing around the hairpin bends in its course, the stream abraded the upstream and downstream sides of the rock fins forming the meander necks, so forming the natural arch about 30,000 years ago. Having formed the arch (cutting off the meander visible to the east of the bridge), Bridge Creek continued to downcut into the much softer Kayenta Sandstone, so increasing the vertical height of the bridge opening. Sandstone stumps suggest other bridges (now collapsed) once existed at meanders upstream of Rainbow Bridge. Rainbow Bridge was unknown to the outside world until 1909.
Size: 4258px × 3056px
Location: Rainbow Bridge, Bridge Creek, Lake Powell, Utah, USA
Photo credit: © robert harrison / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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