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Tonto Natural Travertine Bridge
By Lynn | August 12, 2007
Okay, this was one heck of a destination - Tonto Natural Bridge. It is made of travertine and is the largest natural travertine bridge in the world. The span is 183 foot high, with a 400 foot long tunnel that measures 150 feet at its widest point.
First of all, let me point out a couple of things - the road grade was 14% going down into this valley to get to the bridge. That in itself was a bit scary! The last section of the road headed about 500 feet straight down to the entrance booth! Honestly, I didn’t think we would be able to stop.
Secondly, let’s be honest, Jay and I are both a bit overweight and not exactly athletic, so the ranger at the entrance was sure to stress how strenuous the climb down was. He also took the time to point out the options for viewing the bridge from above. There are about 3 vantage points from there - but what he didn’t count on was how adventurous we are! So, we made the hike down to the bottom and boy was it ever worth the hike.
They say you can climb all the way through the bridge and come out the other side and take a trail back to the top, so that was what we were hoping to do. Well, we got to the bottom and there were the travertine boulders, polished so smooth from the water over the years that they shone like glass. The boulders were stacked, with water coming down from above and running through them from the creek. It was incredible!
So, Jay thinking I would never climb over all these obstacles to get a better view, went ahead to “take a picture to try to get perspective” of the size. Well, I figured if he could climb over the rocks, so could I, so off I went. It was incredible.
At one point, we went as far as possible on the right side, so we had to cross the creek to the other side to climb over more rocks to get to the other side.
This is where the water was running. This was even more slippery! We went pretty far, then the last section to climb was really high, which was alright, but it was straight down on the other side to get the rest of the way through. We wisely decided that it might be best to go back the way we came (which is what most people we passed on the way down had done).
It was well worth the climb, it was really something. I have images posted that you really need to look at, but let me point out a couple of things first.
Note on the first slide the water coming down. When we got below, I took some pix from below to that point. Also, there are some other shots of water at the bottom that is misting. That is from the same water that you see at the top. One of the huge boulders has ferns growing underneath. Also, notice in some of the shots that the walls of the bridge look like liquid stopped in time. We learned that it was formed partly because of lava flow, but not sure if that is what that’s from. Pretty spectacular.
Topics: New Photos, Out and about |