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Utah Travel Headlines

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Great Basin And Natural Bridges Are 'Other Gems' In National Park System

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has an interesting article describing places in the National Park System where you can escape the crowds. Great Basin National Park and Natural Bridges National Monument are featured on the list.

Here are excerpts:

"Getting to Great Basin isn't easy because it really is in the middle of nowhere. But if you're traveling from Zion National Park to Yosemite or Yellowstone, it's worth the slight detour. Once you arrive you can go underground via Lehman Caves, view 5,000-year-old Bristlecone pine trees, backpack along more than 60 miles of trails, or try your luck with some of the park's brook, brown, rainbow and even cutthroat trout. "

"Utah 95 is known as the "Trail of the Ancients" due to the widespread presence of Anasazi, or Ancestral Puebloans, who lived here on the Colorado Plateau from roughly A.D. 500 to 1300. Natural Bridges, created to protect three stone bridges formed by rushing waters, also counts roughly 500 archaeological sites within its borders. Throughout the surrounding two-million-plus acres of public lands, much of which are either administered by the U.S. Forest Service or U.S. Bureau of Land Management, are literally thousands of other ruins and artifacts."

"Natural Bridges' heavily treed, 13-site campground lies on a small rise near the middle of the monument. Wrapping it are two deep, sandstone canyons that flood waters sculpted over the ages. In doing so, they created three of the world's largest natural bridges: 268-foot-wide Sipapu, 180-foot-wide Owachomo and 204-foot-wide Kachina. The overhanging cliffs also house the Horsecollar Ruins, the remains of dwellings abandoned roughly 700 years ago."

Read the entire article.

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