View from Navajo Bridge

Navajo Bridge is one critical piece of infrastructure in this area of the United States. As you may know, the Colorado River is the most significant body of water in the Southwest United States, while it used to be much more powerful, it has carved out large canyons in the sandstone which makes traversing the area difficult. The canyon can be very wide at some parts that sometimes, travelers needs to go around for hundreds of miles just to cross the river. The Navajo Bridge was the solution for this and it shortened the time to get from Utah to Arizona. Like much of the infrastructure in this area, it is a marvel of engineering and for it to have even been built in the first place is very impressive.

I was surprised to see how far above the canyon floor the Navajo Bridge was. I know it shouldn’t come as a surprise to me anymore but it is still surprising how high it actually is. The road I have been driving on gave no indication that this was actually and elevated area and that the river is much further down below. It isn’t as deep as what I saw at the Grand Canyon, but this is still very impressive to see. You can see the sheer vertical walls here. There was much care given to make sure that rocks won’t fall into the canyon below, since there will be tourists traveling on the river. You also do not want to dump rocks into the river as it will cause the river become shallower. Construction of the new Navajo Bridge also took pains to make sure that the canyon doesn’t look disturbed when the bridge was constructed. This included removing any rocks carved out from the construction as well as coloring the walls to match its natural color.

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