Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah

Saturday, April 5th, was spent exploring Natural Bridges and the Valley of the Gods. There are three natural bridges along the 9 mile loop drive at the monument. The best view of the bridges is to get under them. This means dropping in elevation down under them, and then of course, climbing back up. The first bridge had a drop of 500 feet, the second bridge had a drop of 400 feet, and the third bridge probably had a drop of a couple of hundred feet. So, instead of what goes up must come down, we did the reverse, what goes down, must come back up to the truck! We figure we climbed over 1000 feet. Each of the hikes was about 1/2 mile each way, so they were also pretty steep. Some included climbing down a ladder. The weather was pretty nice for hiking - low 60's.

After exploring the Natural Bridges, we drove south and eventually drove a section of road called the Moki Dugway. This section of the road is gravel and is about 3 miles long and drops 1100 feet along a series of hairpin turns. After regaining the pavement, we then turned onto a dirt road that goes through the Valley of the Gods. This is 17 mile drive through monoliths of sandstone - all very scenic. All in all a nice loop drive of about 130 miles during the day. (Nope - we didn't have the RV with us - it was safe back in the campground.)