Navajo Bridge

The eastern doorway to the Arizona Strip — twin steel arches leaping Marble Canyon more than 460 feet above the Colorado River, and one of the surest places anywhere to watch California condors ride the updrafts.

Look closely and you'll notice there are actually two Navajo Bridges standing side by side. The original opened on January 12, 1929, carrying the first highway across the Colorado River for hundreds of miles in either direction and finally linking northern Arizona with southern Utah by automobile.

By the late twentieth century the narrow 1929 span could no longer handle modern trucks and traffic, so a second, wider bridge was built just alongside and opened on May 2, 1995. The new bridge now carries U.S. Route 89A; both stand more than 460 feet above the green water of the Colorado, near-identical steel arches separated by only a few decades of engineering.

The two Navajo Bridges seen from the river below. Photo: Grand Canyon National Park, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Before the bridge, getting across the Colorado here meant the ferry that had run a few miles upstream at Lees Ferry since 1873. It was a slow crossing and an unreliable one — high water and weather regularly shut it down, and travelers could wait days for safe passage.

When the 1929 bridge opened, it ended that era almost overnight. What had been a tense river crossing became a few seconds of driving high above the canyon, and the route north onto the Arizona Strip was open year-round for the first time.

Because the modern span took over the traffic, the original 1929 bridge was kept and reopened for people on foot and on horseback. You can walk to the middle, lean on the railing, and look straight down to the river far below — a view drivers never get.

On the west side, an interpretive center tells the story of the bridge and the canyon, and Navajo artisans often sell handmade jewelry and crafts at the east end. It is an easy, worthwhile stop whether you are passing through or making a day of it.

Navajo Bridge is one of the most dependable places in the Southwest to see California condors. The birds were reintroduced to the nearby Vermilion Cliffs in 1996, and they often roost on the steel beneath the bridge and ride the canyon updrafts overhead.

With wingspans approaching nine and a half feet, they are unmistakable. Look for the numbered wing tags — every bird in the wild flock is tracked — and keep your distance; these are among the rarest birds in North America.

Navajo Bridge sits at the mouth of Marble Canyon, the dramatic opening stretch of the Grand Canyon. Just upstream, Lees Ferry is the launch point for nearly every Grand Canyon river trip and the official Mile 0 of the Colorado through the canyon.

For travelers, the bridge is a gateway. Cross it on U.S. 89A and the road climbs west past the Vermilion Cliffs, over the Kaibab Plateau, and down toward Fredonia and the rest of the Strip. It is, quite literally, where the Arizona Strip begins.

The Colorado River winding through Marble Canyon below the bridge. Photo: Don Graham, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Base your trip in one of the region's gateway communities.

Hero photograph: Mark Averitt, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.