By Scott Buehler, Moving UtahThe monument
Three bridges cut by running water, on a paved nine mile loop
Natural Bridges protects three stone bridges cut by two streams in a canyon system at about 6,500 feet, which makes it a monument about how water shapes rock rather than about scenery alone.
Natural Bridges was made a national monument in 1908, the first in Utah, to protect the three bridges: Sipapu, Kachina and Owachomo, names drawn from Hopi. Each sits in the bottom of its canyon on an old stream meander and is reached from a signed viewpoint on Bridge View Drive, a paved one way loop of about nine miles.
The difference between a bridge and an arch matters here and it is not pedantry. An arch is opened by weathering, meaning frost, salt and gravity working on rock. A bridge is cut by running water, which is why all three of these sit where a stream once swung through the stone. Stand under one in a dry streambed and the whole landscape reads differently.
None of the three is visible from the road, so seeing them properly means short walks down from the pullouts, from a few hundred yards at Owachomo to a mile and a half with three ladders at Sipapu. A fourth stop is not a bridge at all: the Horse Collar Ruin overlook, about 0.6 miles round trip and nearly level. The reef page covers what to stop at on the way out here.
Natural Bridges by the numbers
1908
made a national monument, Utah's first
9 mi
of one way paved loop road
6,500 ft
roughly, the elevation of the campground
2007
first International Dark Sky Park in the world
Sipapu Bridge, the big one
Bridge View Drive · 1.5 miles round trip · Strenuous but short · Directions
Sipapu is the largest of the three and the second largest natural bridge in the world by span. From its viewpoint on Bridge View Drive you see it across the canyon; to stand under it you go down, and the descent is the most serious walking in the monument: about a mile and a half round trip for roughly five hundred feet, on a route that uses a cut staircase and three wooden ladders.
It is short enough that most reasonably fit people manage it and steep enough that the return is the part they remember. The reward is scale. A bridge is different from an arch, which matters here: an arch is carved by weathering, a bridge is cut by running water, and standing in the streambed under Sipapu makes the mechanism obvious in a way no sign does.
Ladders, not a handrail
Three wooden ladders and a staircase cut into the rock is not a difficult combination for anybody comfortable on a ladder, and it is a hard stop for anybody who is not. There is no alternative route to the bottom. Take the viewpoint if the ladders are not for you, because the view from the rim is genuinely good and the point of the monument is not endurance.
Do it first, while it is cool
The loop is one way, and Sipapu is the first bridge you reach. That works in your favor: it is the hardest walk and the one you want to do in the morning shade rather than at two in the afternoon in June. Park at the viewpoint, go down, come back up, and then do Kachina and Owachomo in descending order of effort, which is also the order the road delivers them.
The details
Getting there
Follow the one way Bridge View Drive from the visitor center. Sipapu is the first signed viewpoint and parking area on the loop, and the trail leaves from it.
Before you go
- Three wooden ladders and a staircase. There is no easier way down to this one.
- Roughly 500 feet of descent means roughly 500 feet of climb on the way back.
- Carry water. There is none on the trail and the canyon is hotter than the rim.
- Ice on the ladders in winter is a real hazard. Check at the visitor center.
- Sipapu is the second largest natural bridge in the world by span. Take the time.
Kachina Bridge, the young one
Bridge View Drive · About 0.7 miles each way · Moderate · Directions
Kachina is the thickest and by the usual reading the youngest of the three, which is to say the stream has had least time to thin it. The walk down is about 0.7 miles each way for roughly four hundred feet of descent, which puts it between Sipapu and Owachomo in effort and closer to Sipapu in feel.
It sits at the junction of two canyons, which is why it is there: two watercourses meeting is a lot of moving water in a flood, and moving water is what cuts a bridge. The base of it is massive in a way the viewpoint does not convey, and this is the one where people who have already done Sipapu tend to be surprised again.
The one people skip, and should not
Because it sits between the famous one and the easy one, Kachina is the bridge that gets left out when a party is running short of afternoon. That is the wrong call if you have any time at all: it is the least visited of the three on foot and the most impressive from directly beneath. If you can only walk down to two of them, make it this one and Owachomo, and view Sipapu from the rim.
Rock art below it, and the rule about it
There are petroglyph and pictograph panels in this canyon and on the bridge itself. The rules are the same as everywhere else out here and they matter more where visitation is concentrated: do not touch the panels, do not chalk, wet or trace them, and do not scramble up to get closer. Skin oil and water both damage rock art permanently, and a panel that has lasted centuries can be diminished in an afternoon.
The details
Getting there
Second signed viewpoint on the one way loop after Sipapu. The trail leaves from the parking area and drops into the canyon at the junction of two drainages.
Before you go
- About 0.7 miles each way and roughly 400 feet of descent. The climb out is the work.
- There is rock art in this canyon. Look, photograph from a distance, touch nothing.
- No water on the trail and little shade until you are down in the canyon.
- Flash flooding is a real risk in a canyon bottom during monsoon season. Watch the sky.
- This is the least walked of the three and arguably the best from underneath.
Owachomo Bridge, the old one, and the easy one
Bridge View Drive · A few hundred yards · Easy · Directions
Owachomo is the thinnest of the three, which by the same logic makes it the oldest: the stream has been working on it longest and it is closest to the end of its life as a bridge. It is also, by a wide margin, the easiest to reach. The walk from its parking area is a few hundred yards on a graded path with about a hundred and eighty feet of drop.
That combination makes it the one to do if you only do one on foot, and the one to bring anybody who is not up for ladders. It is the last of the three on the one way loop, so it also makes a natural close to the drive.
Thin means old, and old means temporary
A natural bridge is a stage rather than a permanent object. Water cuts it, weathering thins it, and eventually it falls. Owachomo is the thinnest span here at a fraction of the thickness of Kachina, which is why it is read as the oldest of the three. Standing under something that is visibly late in its own process is a different feeling from standing under something massive, and it is the reason this bridge is many visitors' favorite.
The best of the three after dark
Owachomo is the bridge most often photographed with the Milky Way through it, and the reason is the short easy walk from the parking area combined with an open western sky. Natural Bridges became the first International Dark Sky Park in the world on 6 March 2007, so if you are staying the night in the campground and the moon is down, this is where to be. Take a red light, let your eyes adapt for twenty minutes, and do not point white torches at other people.
The details
Getting there
The last signed viewpoint on the one way loop. The path from the parking area is graded and short, dropping about 180 feet to the bridge.
Before you go
- A few hundred yards on a made path. The one on this loop that suits most abilities.
- The thinnest span of the three, and by the usual reading the oldest.
- The obvious spot for night photography. Red light only, and let your eyes adjust.
- Even a short walk here needs water in summer. There is none on the trail.
- The loop is one way, so this is the natural end of the drive.
The Horse Collar Ruin overlook
Bridge View Drive · 0.6 miles round trip · Easy · Directions
Between Sipapu and Kachina there is a signed pullout for something that is not a bridge at all. A level path of about 0.6 miles round trip leads to an overlook above Horse Collar Ruin, an Ancestral Puebloan site in an alcove on the canyon wall below, named for the shape of the doorways on two of its granaries.
It is the easiest archaeological stop in the monument and one of the best preserved things visible from a developed overlook anywhere in this country. Half an hour, almost no elevation, and a view of rooms and granaries that have been in that alcove for the better part of a thousand years.
Why the doorways are the point
The name comes from two granary openings shaped like a horse collar, which is the sort of detail that turns a distant wall into architecture. From the overlook you can make out the granaries, the room block and the way the alcove was used, and the interpretation there explains what is being looked at. It pairs well with the Edge of the Cedars museum in Blanding, where pottery from sites like this is cataloged.
Look from the rail, and only from the rail
The site is below the overlook and it is not accessible, which is deliberate. The overlook exists so that visitors can see it without anybody going down. That is the same arrangement as the Butler Wash trail east of here, and it is the pattern to expect at every developed site in this region: a rail, a sign and a distance, all three of which are why the thing you are looking at is still there.
The details
Getting there
A signed pullout on the one way loop between the Sipapu and Kachina viewpoints, with a short and nearly level path out to the overlook.
Before you go
- About 0.6 miles round trip with very little elevation change. The easy one.
- The site is not accessible from the overlook, and that is by design.
- There is no shade on the path. In July, go early.
- Bring binoculars if you have them. The detail is worth it from this distance.
- Pair it with Edge of the Cedars in Blanding, where the material from sites like this is kept.
The practical part
What it costs, and where you sleep if you stay
Everything here is priced plainly except one thing that catches people out: the monument is cashless, so bring a card, a phone, or a pass bought ahead on Recreation.gov rather than paper money.
| What | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Private vehicle | 20 dollars | Valid seven days, covers everyone in the vehicle |
| Motorcycle | 15 dollars | Valid seven days |
| On foot or bicycle | 10 dollars per person | Free under 16 |
| Southeast Utah annual pass | 55 dollars | Also covers Arches, Canyonlands and Hovenweep |
| Campground | 16 dollars a night | 13 sites, booked on Recreation.gov, year round |
Federal fee schedules change, and the annual and interagency pass arrangements change with them. This is the published schedule; confirm with the National Park Service before relying on it, and note that America the Beautiful and other interagency passes are accepted in place of the entrance fee.
The campground is the reason to consider staying rather than driving back. Thirteen sites at about 6,500 feet in pinyon and juniper, 16 dollars a night, each with a table, at least one tent pad and a fire ring, with two pit toilets. There are no hookups, no showers and no water in the campground itself, and larger vehicles do not fit; the sites are small. The monument is cashless and the sites are booked through Recreation.gov, and the campground fills in the good weeks of spring and autumn, so check for a site before you drive out or plan to return to Blanding for the night.
The other reason to stay is the sky, and it is a better one. Natural Bridges became the first International Dark Sky Park anywhere on 6 March 2007, a designation that now covers hundreds of places around the world and began at this one. Forty miles from a town of about 3,200 people and a very long way from anything larger, on a moonless night, what is overhead here is close to what the night sky is supposed to look like.
If you cannot stay, the honest alternative is to do the loop in the afternoon and drive back to Blanding for the night, which is 40 miles of good pavement with almost no traffic. Do not plan on finding a room, a meal or fuel anywhere between the monument and town, because there is none of any of it.
There is no fuel, no shop and no water for a very long way in either direction. Between Blanding and Hite, roughly a hundred miles of UT-95, there is nothing to buy. Mobile coverage is unreliable for most of it and gone for much of it. Fill the tank in Blanding, carry water for everyone in the vehicle regardless of the season, and tell somebody your plan. In summer the canyon bottoms under the bridges run hotter than the rim, and in winter ice on the Sipapu ladders is a genuine hazard rather than a theoretical one.
The thing nobody mentions
The monument has run on solar power since 1980
Natural Bridges is off the grid and always has been. In June 1980 a 100 kilowatt photovoltaic array was dedicated here, and at the time it was the largest solar power plant in the world. It was built because running a line out to a monument this remote was more expensive than building a power station on site, which is a very 1980 sort of calculation that turned out to be a very 2020 sort of answer.
It still runs the place. The monument's electricity comes from photovoltaics with battery storage and generator backup, and the system has been rehabilitated over the decades rather than replaced with a grid connection. A visitor driving the nine mile loop will not necessarily notice it, which is the point: an off grid power plant that has kept a federal facility running for over forty years in canyon country is invisible when it is working.
It is worth knowing about for two reasons. The first is that it is a genuine piece of energy history sitting quietly in a national monument. The second is that it explains a good deal about how this place operates: limited services, no hookups in the campground, a visitor center on reduced days in the off season. Remoteness here is a structural fact rather than an atmosphere, and the power plant is the clearest illustration of it.
The largest solar plant in the world, in 1980, in a canyon forty miles from a town of about 3,200 people.
If you want a real day
Three loops that string the bridges together
The short walk to each bridge from its own parking area is what most people do. Linking them along the canyon bottoms is the better day, and it is a properly primitive one.
| Route | Distance | Character | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sipapu to Kachina loop | About 5.7 miles | Primitive and strenuous, canyon bottom and mesa top | A half day, with a car shuttle or a mesa top return |
| Kachina to Owachomo loop | About 6.5 miles | Primitive and strenuous, the gentler of the two | A half day with the easiest ending |
| The full canyon loop | About 12 miles | Primitive and strenuous throughout | A long day, started early, with a great deal of water |
| The three short walks | Under 4 miles in total | Made paths, ladders at Sipapu only | Almost everybody, in one afternoon |
The National Park Service describes all three linked routes as primitive and strenuous, which in this monument means route finding, no shade, no water and canyon bottoms that flash flood in monsoon season. Ask at the visitor center about conditions before committing to any of them.
Back east
The permit country
Cedar Mesa starts before you reach the monument, and every canyon on it runs on a permit issued at the Kane Gulch ranger station.
The permit pageOn the way
Comb Ridge and Butler Wash
The free signed overlook near milepost 111 and the highway cut through eighty miles of standing sandstone.
The reef pageIn town
Edge of the Cedars
A great house begun about AD 825, a kiva you climb into, and more than 800 pots in one room.
The museum pageFor movers
The San Juan base camp
What the town actually carries: one utility bill for six services, two hospitals, a campus and a five hour drive.
The movers pageThe rest of San Juan County's canyon country
- Cedar Mesa, the permit country you drive past on the way here, where every canyon runs on a permit from the Kane Gulch ranger station.
- Comb Ridge and the developed roadside sites on UT-95 east of the monument, from the Butler Wash overlook to the highway cut through the reef.
- Everything west of the monument on UT-95 toward Hite and Lake Powell, a long empty drive that is a route rather than a destination from Blanding.
- Hovenweep National Monument, about 45 miles southeast of Blanding in the other direction, with its own gate fee or the shared Southeast Utah annual pass.
- The Needles district of Canyonlands, which is reached from Monticello rather than from here and is a long day rather than a detour.