Natural Bridges National Monument

Next stop, Blanding, Utah- a small town about 60 miles from Moab, giving us shorter drives to other sites. We visited several, including the Needles part of Canyonlands (discussed in prior Canyonlands post) and Natural Bridges National Monument.

Natural Bridges National Monument was very cool:

The park has a scenic drive to the bridges overlooks. The first is Sipapu Bridge, which has a 268 foot span:

The second bridge is Kachina Bridge:

The third bridge we saw was Owachomo Bridge, the shortest of the 3 with a span of 180 feet, and we hiked to the bridge:

Besides the bridges we saw amazing ruins of cliff dwellings:

This is the Horse Collar Ruins, an ancestral pueblo site. You cannot go to them, of course, but luckily we had our binoculars with us!

There are other interesting things to see in Natural Bridges, including this goblin with a rounded top, and this “living soil” that is in most of the parks we visited. It is made up of many things including lichen, mosses, algae, and mostly cyanobacteria. There are signs in the parks to stay on trails and “Don’t Bust the Crust”- so interesting!

After all the yellow trees that we saw, I had to capture a picture of this beautiful red foliage outside the visitor center at Natural Bridges:

We definitely recommend a visit to Natural Bridges National Monument!