Transcript“Ma-vah-talk-tump”, as the Paiutes say, meaning “under the horse’s belly”. They’re also known as natural bridges. In this arid land, water is nature’s sculptor. In winter, ice expands into cracks and fractures stone. Through countless seasons, rain and meltwater have carved the intricate canyonlands of southern Utah. The story of Natural Bridges began 260 million years ago, when sand dunes drifted across an ancient seashore. Shaped by shifting winds, the dunes became cross-bedded and then were slowly cemented by minerals from seeping moisture. Frozen in time, the Cedar Mesa sandstone became the dominant formation of these high mesas. But for millions of years, the Cedar Mesa Sandstone was buried by other sediments. Slowly, layer upon layer, the overlying debris was eroded away. About 10 million years ago, forces deep within the Earth’s surface uplifted the Colorado Plateau, and the pace of erosion quickened. Streams which had once meandered across flat floodplains began cutting into underlying rock. Driven by both the uplifting plateau and the incessant pull of gravity, the streams became trapped in their old, winding channels. With stream meanders imprisoned in stone, the final ingredient needed to form the bridges came about 12,000 years ago with the end of the last ice age: rushing water. Torrents of water from melting ice and a wetter climate accelerated the rate of erosion. Today water still shapes this arid land. Powerful thunderstorms may foreshadow flash floods that scour the slickrock canyons. Racing headlong into the outside bend of an entrenched meander, floodwaters undercut the wall of stone. Floods can attack a meander from both sides. Eventually the stream breaches the thinning wall, tunneling through solid rock and abandoning the old meander in favor of a new shorter route. A natural bridge forms, and, like a living creature, it has a life span. With the passage of time and successive floods, a bridge’s opening becomes larger. A Natural Bridges National Monument, Kachina Bridge is the youngest of the three bridges. Its opening is relatively small compared to its massive bulk. Upstream, Sipapu Bridge is considered a mature bridge. Its immense span is second only to Rainbow Bridge on Lake Powell. Sipapu means “place of emergence,” a sacred place where the first Hopi people entered our world. The oldest and most fragile bridge is Owachomo, a Hopi word meaning “rock mound.” Owachomo is so old that the stream which formed it no longer flows beneath it, having long since carved a new route through nearby Armstrong Canyon. Bridge formation and collapse is a continuous process. While some bridges are in the process of creation, others have come and gone. What we see today is just a snapshot in time, just and instant in geologic history. It was water that formed these impressive spans of stone, and it was water that brought people to these timeless canyons. The earliest inhabitants were nomadic hunters and gatherers who left little more than stone tools behind. Beginning around A.D. 250, the ancestors of today’s Puebloan peoples settled this part of Utah’s canyon country. The ancestral Puebloans cultivated corn and squash and fashioned fine pottery. They settled were water and other natural resources were most abundant, and when resources became scarce, they moved on. Sometimes they would return generations later. It was a pattern that lasted for over 1,000 years. Often, the Puebloans left their mark in the form of petroglyphs pecked into rock panels and pictographs painted on protected walls. After years of intermittent occupation, the ancestral Puebloans migrated to the south and east around A.D 1270. Why? Why this final exodus from the canyonlands? Perhaps the ancient farmers overused the land and its fragile resources, or a prolonged drought may have driven them away. Although Native Americans were the true discoverers of natural bridges, it was a gold prospector named Cass Hite who first announced their existence to the world in the late 1800s. Before long, expeditions were mounted to map and study the largest concentration of natural bridges in the world. These unusual spans and the well-preserved Puebloan sites nearby led President Theodore Roosevelt to proclaim the area Natural Bridges National Monument in 1908. The ancestral Puebloans lived in a diverse land. Little has changed. Today the mesa tops are dominated by pinyon and juniper trees. Green hanging gardens nestle in the protection of alcoves and under ledges. On canyon floors, cottonwoods and a whole variety of riparian vegetation depend on the increased moisture from spring runoff, springs, and seeps. Ironically, the most obscure forms of plant life are also among the most important to this arid land. Cryptobiotic soil is a fragile combination of bacteria, fungi, and algae that has been termed “a living earth” and is the basis for much of the native plant life. In summer, the reptiles are the most conspicuous animals. Collared lizards and whiptails scurry throughout Utah’s canyon country. Throughout the year, mule deer browse on both the mesa tops and canyon bottoms, coyotes search the horizon for food, and overhead, jays and ravens sail the skies. It is a delicate balance. You can help preserve Natural Bridges National Monument by respecting this still wild land and treading lightly by staying on designated trails. Cryptobiotic soils that take decades to form can be instantly destroyed by a careless hiker’s footstep. Archaeological sites are fragile, irreplaceable, and they are protected by federal law. Please do not disturb them or take anything from the monument. Natural Bridges invites exploration. A nine-mile driving tour provides access to bridge overlooks and trailheads. Primitive trails wind between the bridges in the canyon bottoms, offering the adventurous hiker several options for longer hikes. This is a special place in any season…. A place where wind, water, and time have joined to create a rarity in nature’s architecture: bridges of stone. Discover Natural Bridges at your own pace.
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An overview of the geologic and cultural history in the park. |
Last updated: June 19, 2025