This is a remake of the original image made back in the mid summer of 02. Mid summer offers very little to no great skies, only late summer out west. A good number of my images have terrible sky's and so I revised this to reflect a what could be in late summer.
Natural Bridge NM is a unique place. Although it only has 3 major land bridges, they are spectacular to see and to stand under. Check out the other 3 images of Owachomo to the right of this one.
Land bridges are made by a small stream of water slowly getting larger and larger over millions of years eventually carving out the bridge you see here that resembles an arch. BTW, arches are carved out by wind and rain events over millions of years.
This is the smallest of the three major land bridges in this National Monument. It's height above the river bottom is 106 ft. The span width is 180 ft with a cross section width of 27 ft. at it's top. At it's thickest point it is only 9 ft. One wonders just how many more generations of time will Natural Wonders such as this will be left for our future generations of granddaughters and grandsons to enjoy.
And BTW, if you like a bit of humor of the things that have happened to me over the years on some of my photo adventures, try reading some of the stories in my Blog. I've just added the last two adventures that happened many years ago. Just waiting for the next humorous adventure to arrive.
I'm sure there must have been a couple of events that happened out of the ordinarily while in Canyonlands and Arches NP but trying to remember back. 15 years now is a real task.
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This is a remake of the original image made back in the mid summer of 02. Mid summer offers very little to no great skies, only late summer out west. A good number of my images have terrible sky's and so I revised this to reflect a what could be in late summer. As you can see, these land bridges blend in to the surrounding rock formation. I left just enough sky under the bridge so that you can see the massive size of these bridges.
Just imagine how long it took for a small stream of water to force it's way through a crack in the rocks and eventually erode away growing larger and larger with each passing century. I'm standing down into the business end of this water carved structure. Probably a drop of 6 to 7 feet from that of directly under the bridge. Just imagine a torant of summer rain water coming right at you from this vantage point.
Natural Bridge NM is a unique place. Although it only has 3 major land bridges, they are spectacular to see and to stand under.
This is the smallest of the three major land bridges in this National Monument. It's height above the river bottom is 106 ft. The span width is 180 ft with a cross section width of 27 ft. at it's top. At it's thickest point it is only 9 ft. One wonders just how many more generations of time will Natural Wonders such as this will be left for our future generations of granddaughters and grandsons to enjoy.
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Tags: Picnik
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The last of the re-works for Natural Bridges NM in Utah. Perhaps the next time I see these bridges again, it will be with some snow.
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This is a 3 image wide pano with 2 exposures each,
one for shadows and one for highlights. This was well before HDR work.
One thing you need to do for land bridges and most arches, is to get down to ground level and have the sky appear in the image. This sometimes can be challenging but trying to shoot these things from the parking lot overlook obviously does not work.
Kachina Bridge is named for the rock art symbols on the face of the bridge that resembles symbols commonly used on kachina dolls. It is a Hopi Indian name. This bridge is the second largest bridge in the Monument. It is 210 ft. high, spans 204 ft, is 44 ft. wide and 93 ft thick at the top. The hike down to the streambed here from the parking area is very steep. Once here, it is quite easy walking to either side of kachina Bridge. You can hike from bridge to bridge once down to this river bed level. Sipapu is 5.6 miles upstream from this point and Owachomo Bridge is 5.4 miles downstream. Horsecollar Ruins is located between Sipapu and Kachina Bridges.
Horsecollar Ruins was what started my fascination with these early Indians and the ruins that they left behind nearly 800 years ago. These Indians were the early culture of many of the tribes of today. They were called Anasazi, "Ancient Ones" a member of an ancient American Indian people of the southwestern US, who flourished between c. 200 BC and AD 1500. The earliest phase of their culture, typified by pit dwellings, is known as the Basket Maker period; the present day Pueblo culture developed from a later stage.
After leaving Natural Bridges I began seeking more information and ruin locations that I could hike to and or parks and monuments that preserved these ruins on the remainder of this trip out west.
I should have mentioned that this was made with my first Sony digital camera and it only had 2.1 MP but did write the file to a mini-disc in Tiff format. That only took 45 seconds and you had to wait as there was no buffer. But the lens was a super sharp Carl Zeiss. My cell phone's camera is 8 MP...progress. Thanks
You can see more of the images that I made at this park here:
www.flickr.com/photos/jmwnaturesimages/albums/72157594313...
BTW, if you like a bit of humor of the things that have happened to me over the years on some of my photo adventures, try reading some of the stories in my Blog. I've just added the last two adventures that happened many years ago. Just waiting for the next humorous adventure to arrive.
I'm sure there must have been a couple of events that happened out of the ordinarily while some other photo adventures, but trying to remember back 15 years now is a real task. But when I do I will write them up and post to my Blog.
www.facebook.com
www.jmwnaturesimages.blogspot.com
© All Rights Reserved
This is a remake of the original image made back in the mid summer of 02. Mid summer offers very little to no great skies, only late summer out west. A good number of my images have terrible sky's and so I revised this to reflect a what could be in late summer. As you can see, these land bridges blend in to the surrounding rock formation. I left just enough sky under the bridge so that you can see the massive size of these bridges.
Just imagine how long it took for a small stream of water to force it's way through a crack in the rocks and eventually erode away growing larger and larger with each passing century.
Natural Bridge NM is a unique place. Although it only has 3 major land bridges, they are spectacular to see and to stand under.
This is the smallest of the three major land bridges in this National Monument. It's height above the river bottom is 106 ft. The span width is 180 ft with a cross section width of 27 ft. at it's top. At it's thickest point it is only 9 ft. One wonders just how many more generations of time will Natural Wonders such as this will be left for our future generations of granddaughters and grandsons to enjoy.
View Large On Black
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