Day 38. Natural Bridges National Park, Utah.

Monday, September 15th.

We are currently based in the South Eastern corner of Utah. We had a choice of a number of National Parks to visit today. After some discussion we settled on the Natural Bridges National Park - not too far away. This is a small, less frequently, visited park and we thought we would enjoy a slightly quieter day, away from some of the crowds we have encountered at some of the parks. Also, it still gets really hot in the afternoons here and I was ready for a shorter day to get out of the heat.

Before setting off however, we had breakfast with the hummingbirds at our Inn:

These tiny birds are such fun to watch and were buzzing all around us as we ate our delicious breakfast. Apparently, their eggs are the size of a small pea!

Then we hit the road and had a lovely ride to the park along incredibly scenic, well maintained roads with barely another vehicle. We rode into the park itself (another free entry with our pass which has paid for itself at least twice over by our reckoning) and arrived at the first bridge - The Sipapu Bridge, which means a "place of emergence" in the Ancient Hopi culture.

The bridge can see seen in the canyon below. We are standing on a sandstone mesa. The bridges were formed by meandering streams that eroded the rock from two sides until a bridge was formed.

As I looked below to the bridge I wondered how we would get down - this soon became apparent:

We inched down these steep, but quite secure ladders, clambered down rocky slopes and narrow paths, getting closer with each precarious descent:

And just to show I made it as well!

Finally, we reached the floor of the canyon and were rewarded with beautiful views of the bridge:

The valley was cool and quiet, with just a little stream running through it:

Now, of course, we had to climb out again, made a little harder by the increasing heat:

We made it onto a plateau, took some more photos:

And climbed the final staircase up a sheer rock face:


Once we reached the top we looked back down to the plateau where we had rested - you can just see the tiny dots on the plateau in the center of the photo - these are other people!

Back to the bikes and we continued the ride around the entire park to at least look at the other bridges:

But no way was I climbing down to another one! 

We headed back to the hotel with a quick stop at a grocery store en-route to buy some salad for our supper in the room tonight. Another great day. And no - we didn't get back early!