Oh my, Natural Bridges is naturally amazing. It's the perfect park, small, quiet, not at all overrun, and full of the most fantabulous landscape. It's named for three hollowed out arches through the park named for Youth, Maturity and Old Age. Each bridge is in a different part of the park down in canyons formed by the Fremont River. They have Indian names and we hiked down the canyon to the steepest middle one, Sipapu. It's my favorite kind of hike, a real scramble down the rocks, with ladders, wide cliff ledges, smooth slanty large rocks, trees at the bottom of the canyon. Below is part of the trail.
We were ultra fortunate to take the hike to Sipapu Bridge as a potential storm passed overhead. We paused a while on the way down to the canyon bottom and watched the clouds of many gray hues slide toward us. We identified the many hollowed out spots along the cliff walls where we could shelter in case of rare rain. Turns out there was not a drop that we saw. We had seen the same storm earlier in the day from above (see future "The Road" entry for picture of rain over the Utah plain). We met this lovely couple from Eugene, Oregon and the guy told us if you're close to the rain, you see that it doesn't even hit the ground. It's so dry that it evaporates before it hits.
This is Sipapu bridge from underneath with the oaks above us.
Ummm, sunset.
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