Navajo Bridge

Entrance to the Old Navajo Bridge

Entrance to the Old Navajo Bridge

I was happily driving along the highway on my way to North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I, unsurprisingly, had to stop a few times to take photos because this kind of scenery was new to me and I find it strangely fascinating. While I do mind the heat, I think it is a very beautiful landscape. There would be a few places to stop here and I don’t know about the other visitors but I would stop frequently for photos. I was then surprised to find out that there is a Navajo Bridge here. Apparently, there is a section of the Colorado river which is nearby and obviously, the bridge was built to cross the river.

Sign for Navajo Bridge

Sign for Navajo Bridge

The Navajo Bridge was built in a narrower section of the river which isn’t too far from here but if you look at the map. The road seems to awkwardly turn from Antelope Pass and seemingly avoid the Colorado river and only to cross it further upstream. Looking at the map, it seems that this would be the best place to put a bridge. If you naively built a bridge near where the pass ends, you would end up having to deal with potentially unstable rocks to build your bridge on, definitely not safe. There are actually two bridges here. The older bridge was built in 1929, while the newer one was completed in 1995.

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