Rainbow Bridge

Rainbow Bridge belongs to the Wonders of the World, and is actually one of the latest, for it was not seen by white folk until 1909 and even yet does not know what a crowd is. (On their first visit, over ten years ago, my children were the youngest whites who had ever been there.) It is in southern Utah but you usually get to it by way of the Navajo Indian Reservation in northern Arizona. The route is Flagstaff to Cameron, Cameron to Tuba City, then up the long trail, past vast slabs of maroon rock, rosy cliffs and immense blue shadows,to Rainbow Lodge. Up there, very high, you stare out at a vast rained world, and the Flood might have just subsided. The air is clear and sweet, and at night you see more stars than you have ever seen before.

You travel by horse or mule from the Lodge to the Bridge, and it is a longish day's journey, through canyons, and riding at all angles between colossal sandstone cliffs-gobles, orange, rust brown, vermilion, magenta-and you feel like a character in an Arabian Nights story, perhaps Sindbad ashore. You pitch camp in the shadow of a pink-and-cinnamon cave, about five hundred feet high and quite unreal. You eat cowboy biscuits, steak and fried potatoes, smoke a pipe and fall asleep.

In the morning, which looks like one of the first mornings ever made, you go down to Rainbow Bridge, about a mile away. It isactually become than a stone bridge; it is a true arch, almost symmetrical. span the Capitol at Washington with delicacy. Try if possible to do what hours alone with the Bridge. I have ment, and have never been quite alone. The day was perfect. Effortless Eden. The sky, seen below the shining shades darker than the stone beneath, turquoise. On the other side, through of bright green vegetation, the coppery cliffs and bastions of fire. It is only to walk through there, everything would be different forever.

RAINBOW Facts about Rainbow Br

Rainbow Bridge National Monument, situated the bridge has a reddish cast, stained in many in southern Utah, lies within the Piute Indian places with blackish or greenish lichens and rust. Reservation. It is approximately six miles north The National Monument is in one of the least of the Arizona line and about 175 miles north of known, least inhabited regions in the United Flagstaff, via highway, desert road and pack trail. States. The thinly vegetated surrounding country This almost perfect arch, carved in stone by wind supports only a few goats and sheep belonging and water, was proclaimed a National Monument to the scattered bands of Navajo and Piutes. To by President Taft on May 30, 1910. It includes the Piutes the bridge is known as "Barahcini." 160 acres around the largest, most symmetrical, The Navajos call it "Nonnezoshi," meaning "hole natural bridge yet discovered. in the rock," or "arch."

Rainbow Bridge, as seen in the natural-color Beneath the arch are the remains of an ancient photograph on opposite side, partly spans Bridge altar believed to have been built by the early cliff Canyon, which extends from Navajo Mountain dwellers, indicating that the bridge was probably northwestward to the Colorado River. The bridge an object of superstitious worship even to these is 309 feet high from the bottom of the gorge and ancient people. The arch is supposed by the In has a 278-foot span. The top of the arch is 40 feet dians to represent the rainbow, or sun path, and thick and 33 feet wide. Rainbow Bridge was one who passed under could not return without a formed by long-continued wearing away of rock certain prayer.

The existence of Rainbow Bridge first became known in the early summer of 1908. This was disclosed to Professor Byron Cummings, then of