THE GREAT NATURAL BRIDGES OF UTAH 



165 



the stage to Bluff, a distance of 75 miles. 

 From Bluff one must travel with saddle 

 and pack animals 55 miles northwest to 

 the bridges. Both these routes seem 

 long, hard trips by stage and on horse- 

 back, but if one enjoys outdoor life every 

 hour of the trip will be a delight and the 

 atmosphere will prove a veritable "foun- 

 tain of youth." 



the; largest natural bridge known 



By going down the San Juan River 

 from Bluff 25 miles to the new oil town 

 of Goodridge and crossing the river over 

 the new steel bridge now nearly com- 

 pleted, and then taking a southwesterly 

 course of about 50 miles across the coun- 

 try, one may visit the recently discovered 

 natural bridge known to the Indians as 

 Nonnezoshi (the stone arch). 



This is the largest natural arch yet 

 found and measures 308 feet in height 

 and 275 feet between the abutments. It 

 extends from a bench on one side across 

 into a cliff' on the other and hence spans 

 the canyon in which it is found. This 

 canyon, called by the Indians Nonne- 

 zoshi-boko, extends from the slopes of 

 Navajo Mountain northwest and joins 

 the Colorado River a few miles below the 

 mouth of the San Juan. It is a deep, 

 irregular gorge, in places so narrow that 

 one has to walk in the stream in order 

 to make his way along its course. The 

 arch is situated about 6 miles above the 

 mouth of the gorge in an exceedingly 

 picturesque and beautiful part of the 

 canyon. 



This region formerly belonged to the 

 Navajo reservation, then was segregated 

 and held open to entry for a time, and 

 now is included in that part of Utah re- 

 cently set aside as a reservation for the 

 Pahutes. It is seamed by deep gorges ex- 

 tending north and northwest toward the 

 San Juan and the Colorado and broken 

 by high cliffs and stretches of smooth, 

 steep sandstone, so that it is almost im- 

 penetrable. 



Few even of the Indians are well 

 acquainted with this region. It is cele- 

 brated as the place where Hoskinimi, one 

 of the most revered leaders among the 



Navajo, successfully evaded Kit Carson, 

 in 1866, when the latter taught the 

 Navajo such a terrible lesson; but not 

 even Hoskinimi seems to have penetrated 

 as far as the Nonnezoshi. The members 

 of the Utah Archeological Expedition 

 and of surveying party of the U. S. 

 General Land Office, who visited the 

 bridge together August 14, 1909, are evi- 

 dently the first white men to have seen 

 this greatest of nature's stone bridges. 



As shown by the accompanying illus- 

 trations, this remarkable freak in the 

 earth's crust is hardly a bridge in the 

 true sense of the term, but is more prop- 

 erly an enormous flying buttress that has 

 been chiseled out by the ages and left 

 as a specimen of the handiwork of the 

 Master Builder. The surface formation 

 of this section is the same thick bed of 

 red and yellow sandstone found in the 

 region of White Canyon, and Nonne- 

 zoshi has been cut out of the cliff in the 

 same manner that the White Canyon 

 bridges were formed. It is a graceful 

 arch, looked at from any position, and 

 is only about 20 feet thick in the nar- 

 rowest part. 



This slender arm of the cliff stretches 

 out across the canyon like a rainbow. In 

 its shadow on the bench at one side are 

 the remains of what was probably an 

 ancient fire shrine. One can easily 

 imagine a group of cliff-dwellers gath- 

 ered around the sacred fire with offerings 

 to the Sun Father and the Earth Mother. 

 The Pahutes look upon it with awe, and 

 Mr C. A. Colville, who took a party 

 there in November, tells us that their 

 Pahute guide, Whitehorsebiga, would not 

 pass beneath the arch because he had 

 forgotten the prayer that must be said 

 before doing so. 



On the slopes of Navajo Mountain 

 you pass two smaller arches that would 

 each be an attraction by itself were they 

 not overshadowed by the grander Non- 

 nezoshi. 



In Pritchett Valley, 12 miles by trail 

 southeast of Moab. in Grand County, is 

 a stone arch that plainly has been formed 

 in a different manner from those above 

 described. All about this valley the 



