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On behalf of the National Park Service, and the Department Of Interior,
we welcome you to Rainbow Bridge National Monument.
Designated as a National Monument on May 30th, 1910, Rainbow Bridge is
hidden away in one of the most remote, inaccessible landscapes, in the lower
48 states.
Located about 53 water miles north of Page, Arizona,
Rainbow Bridge is nestled in a steep walled canyon
in extreme Southern Utah, five miles from the Arizona border.
It is still a pristine, majestic sight,
much as it was when it awed and inspired its first Anglo discoverers in 1909.
Former director of the National Park Service, Bill Mott
said, "The parks are the constants, the fixed elements of America that can be shared by everyone.
Not only now, but also on into a future we cannot now know, or understand."
Welcome to this fixed element of the old west.
Is it possible that overhead shot
could have given you the sensation you have been dropped into the middle of nowhere?
Well in 1910, president William Howard Taft might as well have designated a National
monument on the moon.
It makes you wonder what intrinsic features this spot might posses
that would have compelled president Taft, in an office roughly two thousand miles
east of here, to take such action. And then later inspire president Theodore Roosevelt to
endure an August visit to Rainbow Bridge by pack train.
That was 1913, the same year that Zane Grey made his first of 4 visits.
Well a good place to look for those intrinsic features, would be right here,
under this natural marvel.
The product of eccentric stream erosion.
Bridge Creek, which originates on the lower slopes of Navajo Mountain,
circuitously cut its way down through layers of sandstone. At this point
produced an entrenched looping meander behind a towering sandstone wall.
Tens of thousands of years of rivering action
created a breach in that wall. The creek channel shifted.
Further erosion and rock falls, the final result of that process is simply
the largest natural bridge in the world. 291 feet tall. That's 6 feet shy
of the height of the capital in Washington DC.
And 275 feet wide. Actually millions of years of erosional activity
have washed away thousands of feet of sediment from above us,
to expose a broad, flat, sometimes coastal plain, straight out of the early Jurassic
age, that existed here roughly 190 million years ago.
Different creatures walked this area back then.
One of them left a track, which is visible in the first viewing area ahead.
So you see, roughly 200 million years of geological and paleontological
history were preserved with that stroke of a pen in 1910.
Actually the bridge has changed little in thousands of years. One could say we're
preserving a view into prehistoric times.
When intermittent torrents of water scoured the rocks,
when people walked, and worshiped this site.
5 Tribes or Nations claim Rainbow Bridge as a sacred site.
Integral to their ancestral heritage.
Historically, from time to time, Native American people have sought refuge in the rugged
remote terrain surrounding Rainbow Bridge.
Many rituals or sings have been held right here.
A bird's eye view provides a vantage point from which one gets a sense of
just how difficult
travel through the surrounding vast carved wilderness, would have been.
That is before Lake Powell could deliver visitors, virtually to the base of the bridge.
Only about 24,000 people had ever visited this site
prior to the completion of the Glen Canyon Dam in 1963.
This year alone, the bridge will probably receive close 200,000 visitors.
It's no wonder that some members of the 1909 Anglo discovery party,
who were up above the upper reaches of Bridge Canyon being led by
White Mesa Ute Jim Mike, were ready to turn back that 4th night out.
ell that story of discovery by the Douglass-Cummings party
is a great American saga involving tough individuals
who possessed grit, and determination.
Who, over the course of many long hot days, persevered
through an uncharted wilderness.
You know what might have surprised some back then
was the twofold purpose of their mission.
Yes in part it was to discover the bridge.
But a higher goal was to then have it surveyed,
and set aside as a National Monument. If it did indeed exist.
Some did not understand the sense of urgency three years earlier, in 1906,
expressed by preservation minded people.
Which culminated in president Theodore Roosevelt signing into law the
Antiquities Act, for the preservation of America's
antiquities, cultural, and natural treasures.
That legislation allowed president Taft to designate this site as a National
Monument, four years later.
But for many this was still the wild and wooly west.
Why worry about something that few people would ever see?
Who could have foreseen the population boom in the west, and the southwest?
And what seer could have predicted that an enormous lake behind a dam
would deliver people virtually to the base of the bridge?
Yet today, this pristine landform stands like a frozen window in time.
A continuance of the past. Rainbow Bridge serves as a lasting symbol
of the farsighted early American, uniquely American
preservation ethic and commitment.
I hope you come soon to see Rainbow Bridge for yourself.
A dramatic unchanged feature of the old west.
To experience not only a connection to our cultural, and our natural heritage,
but also a connection to those that have come before us,
and share their moment of discovery.
Thank you.