Rainbow Bridge

"The morning of August 14, 1909, marked the official discovery of the magnificent natural bridge, which spans 275 feet and towers 291 feet above the stream bed below it." "Its fame was soon widespread, but for many years its visitors would be few, their numbers restricted by the long, arduous trail around Navajo Mountain to the site. The bridge's story included such western figures as trader Louisa Wetherill, wife of John and a Navajo speaker who was the first Anglo to hear of the bridge; Barry Goldwater, who for a time owned and operated Rainbow Lodge; Zane Grey, who wrote about the bridge; and David Brower, the Sierra Club leader who got wrapped up in the intersection of the Rainbow Bridge story with that of Glen Canyon Dam. Its construction and the filling of Lake Powell behind it made Rainbow Bridge a battleground, key territory in the larger war over water and conservation in the West. The remote, hard-to-reach national monument was supposed to define a limit to Colorado River reclamation but instead was inundated by Lake Powell and the tide of visitors who then could reach the foot of the bridge by boat. Though it is now easily and frequently visited and National Park Service amenities are in place, access to Rainbow Bridge is still an evolving and controversial issue."--Jacket.