Rainbow Bridge

Rainbow Bridge, in a remote side canyon of Lake Powell in southern Utah, is one of the largest natural bridges in the world, a sweep of salmon-colored sandstone that rises 290 feet and spans 275 feet. To the Navajo, who call it Nonnezoshe, 'rainbow turned to stone,' it is a sacred place, and it also holds religious meaning for the Hopi, San Juan Southern Paiute, Kaibab Paiute and White Mesa Ute. President William Howard Taft made it a national monument in 1910.

For decades, reaching the bridge meant a trek of several days across Navajo land. The filling of Lake Powell behind Glen Canyon Dam, which began in 1963, brought water close enough for tour boats, and visitors now arrive on a two-hour boat ride from marinas near Page, Arizona, followed by a short walk. Navajo plaintiffs sued in the 1970s over the flooding of sacred sites and the crowds, and lost. Today the National Park Service asks visitors to honor the bridge's sacred character and to consider viewing it from the viewing area rather than walking beneath it.

• Utah
  The Beehive State, red rock and the Great Salt Lake located in
• Arizona
  The Grand Canyon State, admitted 1912 near
• Glen Canyon
  The Colorado River canyon mostly drowned beneath Lake Powell near
• Lake Powell
  Glen Canyon Dam's reservoir on the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona near
• The Colorado River
  The river that carved the Grand Canyon near
• The Colorado Plateau
  The high red-rock heart of the Southwest part of
• Bear Butte
  A sacred mountain of the Lakota and Cheyenne related