Japan's Bridges: Sendai Airport Railway Viaduct in Miyagi Prefecture

June 2011 (38.155 Degrees, 140.927 Degrees) Sendai Airport Railway Viaduct

A long viaduct, completed in 2007, carries trains between Sendai Station and Sendai Airport.  The airport, which is along the coast, was hit by the March 2011 tsunami. The resulting waves washed away cars and a few airplanes without producing much structural damage to the airport. The viaduct was more seriously damaged and wasn't brought back into service until October.

This photo shows the 150 m long two span steel truss that carries the viaduct over a small river about a mile north of the airport. The many equilateral triangles identify it as a Warren Truss, which was invented in 1848 by James Warren.

We can still see the impact of the tsunami such as the knocked over fence, standing water, and dead plants three months after the tsunami.

Japan's Bridges: Sendai Airport Railway Viaduct in Miyagi Prefecture by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Japan's Bridges: Nagamachi Railway Bridges in Miyagi Prefecture (2)

June 2011 (38.2336 Degrees, 140.8891 Degrees) Nagamachi Bridges

A closer look (from the other side) at the Nagamachi Railway Bridges. A reinforced concrete arch rib along each side supports hangers that go through the ties to carry the floor beams. The three bridges are about 44 meters long and have concrete shoes that rest on the abutment seats. The bridges have no cross-bracing, which makes them concrete pony arches.

Japan's Bridges: Nagamachi Railway Bridges in Miyagi Prefecture (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Japan's Bridges: Nagamachi Railway Bridges in Miyagi Prefecture (1)

June 2011 (38.2336 Degrees, 140.8891 Degrees) Nagamachi Bridges

A little north of the JR Natori River Bridge is the Nagamachi Railway Station and three arch bridges over Route 4. I took this photo at dusk after walking along the Shinkansen viaducts, which can be seen behind the arch bridges. This is a nice example of multimodal transportation with bicycle lanes, a highway, four railway bridges (including the one for the bullet train).

This photo doesn't convey the activity of a busy train station. Part of the reason is that the entrance is up ahead and around the corner. Also, I think that Sendai Station (a couple miles away) is more active. It may also be due to the recent large earthquake and tsunami.

It's hard to believe that a few miles to the east, everything was washed away by the tsunami. In fact, the area along the tracks north of the Natori River is filled with prefabricated structures for those who are now homeless.

Japan's Bridges: Nagamachi Railway Bridges in Miyagi Prefecture (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Japan's Bridges: Natori River Utility Bridge in Miyagi Prefecture

June 2011 (38.2049 Degrees, 140.8921 Degrees) Natori River Utility Bridge

A separate bridge will often be built to carry a utility in Japan. We saw today's bridge in the distance in Saturday's photo of the JR Natori River Bridge. In today's photo we are traveling north on the Tobu Toll Road and the utility bridge is on our right. It is a 540 m long, six span steel through arch carrying what looks like a 24 inch waterline. At each end of the bridge the utility line goes up (to allow traffic to travel under it) and then descends underground.

Japan's Bridges: Natori River Utility Bridge in Miyagi Prefecture by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Japan's Bridges: JR Natori River Bridge in Miyagi Prefecture (2)

June 2011 (38.206 Degrees, 140.883 Degrees) JR Natori River Bridge

A less successful photo of the Natori River Bridge (I couldn't find a good place to take a picture). Still, we can see the varying height of the towers. A nice asymmetric touch.

The first time I saw this kind of bridge was in a photo of Christian Menn's Ganter Bridge in Switzerland. However, that bridge stands dramatically 150 meters over a mountain valley. Still, both bridges are similar with concrete diagonal elements that taper towards the towers. However, the Ganter Bridge's tower legs more closely resemble the tops of the towers above the deck. It looks like they painted the tops of the towers (and the stays) on the Natori River Bridge. I prefer the natural color of the concrete girders and tower legs.

The Shinkansen Bridge is in the background and both bridges have cantenary electric lines to power the trains. However, the JR Natori River Bridge has the electric lines attached to the towers. There is some controversy whether extradosed bridges are an economical design. However, I don't see why they shouldn't be. They seem easier to build than an arch or a truss for bridges between 100 and 300 meters in length.

Japan's Bridges: JR Natori River Bridge in Miyagi Prefecture (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Japan's Bridges: JR Natori RIver Bridge in Miyagi Prefecture (1)

June 2011 (38.206 Degrees, 140.883 Degrees) JR Natori River Bridge

A nice thing about Japanese bridge owners and engineers is that they are often adventurous in their choice of bridges. For instance, this railway bridge over the Natori River in Sendai is a five span, 512.2 m long extradosed bridge with a 108.2 m main span. The diagonal elements are prestressed and support the girders in tension, allowing for spans that are a little longer than a girder bridge and a little shorter than an arch bridge.

I think I must have taken this photo from the bullet train on the adjacent bridge. Note the many other bridges crossing the Natori River. Japan seems eager to spend money on their infrastructure.

Japan's Bridges: JR Natori River Bridge in Miyagi Prefecture (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Japan's Bridges: Naruse Okumatsushima Bridge in Miyagi Prefecture

June 2011 (38.414 Degrees, 141.141 Degrees) Naruse Arch Bridge

A little north (upstream) of today's bridge the Naruse and Yoshida Rivers come together and then flow side by side into the Pacific. Just south of the rivers' mouth, Japan's coastline undergoes a complete change from mountains to a flat plain. The fact that this is where the epicenter of the March earthquake occurred may just be a coincidence.

The Naruse Okumatsushima Bridge carries the Sanriku Expressway over the Yoshida and Naruse Rivers. The bridge includes a tied arch segment between the two river spans. The arch appears to be slightly kinked, it is tied to the closer pier with a steel cable, but this is apparently a design or construction problem.

When I first saw this bridge during a recent trip around Miyagi Prefecture I assumed the tilt to the arch was due to the earthquake. However, three or four different engineers assured me that this bridge has always been this way. I guess that a twisted arch is just as stable as a symmetric arch but it does seem odd.

Japan's Bridges: Naruse Okumatsushima Bridge in Miyagi Prefecture by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: Manderfield Interchange in Beaver County

May 2006 (38.4131 Degrees, -112.6522 Degrees) Manderfield Interchange

My last photo from Utah is of this T girder bridge over I-15. The bridge has big embankments at both ends that carry intersections with four way traffic. However, this bridge is only 238 ft long while yesterday's steel bridge was almost 300 ft long although it only had two spans.

According to UglyBridges this bridge was built in 1964, it has a sufficiency rating of 84.6, and it carries 454 vehicles a day. The average daily traffic on today's bridge is much higher than on yesterday's bridge and also much higher than the traffic this bridge carried just ten years before. I wonder what economic calculations are done to justify building a bridge?

Utah's Bridges: Manderfield Interchange in Beaver County by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: I-15 Buckhorn Overcrossing in Iron County

May 2006 (38.008 Degrees, -112.724 Degrees) I-15 Buckhorn OC

From the Paria River, State Route 87 jogs back and forth and then connects to I-15 for the long drive north to Salt Lake City. I don't know if it was the early morning light, the newly paved highway, or some quality of the hills or of the bridge, but I thought this was a pretty photo.

These two span overcrossings on I-15 (with their haunched girders) reminded me of the four-span haunched girder overcrossings in Michigan. For some reason I-15 has both two and four span overcrossings.

Buckhorn Overcrossing is part of a diamond interchange where the on and off ramps are on embankments and the bridge carries you across the freeway. However, the fourth side of the diamond is Buckhorn Road, which takes you away from the freeway. I originally thought this bridge was concrete, but the National Bridge Inventory says its a 292 ft long continuous steel girder bridge. Perhaps the use of haunched steel girders explains why it can go over both the northbound and southbound lanes using only two spans.

The bridge sits on a multicolumn bent in the median and on seat type abutments at the two ends. UglyBridges says it was built in 1979, it has a sufficiency rating of 92.7, and it only carries 32 vehicles a day. I remember the Utah DOT recently retrofitted the bridges on I-15 for earthquakes. I wonder if they retrofitted this bridge even though it carries so little traffic?

Utah's Bridges: I-15 Buckhorn Overcrossing in Iron County by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: SR-87 Paria River Bridge in Kane County

May 2006 (37.108 Degrees, -111.908 Degrees) Paria River Bridge

State Route 89 Paria River Bridge is a five span, 361 ft long steel girder bridge on pier walls and seat type abutments. As of 1998 the bridge carried 1955 vehicles a day due to its role carrying visitors to the Grand Canyon.  This two lane bridge had a sufficiency rating of 73 in 1998 and would cost about $2 million to replace.

A five span river crossing that's just a couple of feet above the ground suggests that the river becomes very wide during floods. The bridge engineer was responsible for keeping the bridge deck above the 100 year flood, which in this case required a long, low bridge. However, for most of the year the Paria is just a tiny creek.

Much of the river is in a slotted canyon which makes it popular with hikers, climbers, and film directors. It's also historically significant with hundreds of prehistoric drawings, petroglyphs, settlements including Lee's Ferry (where people once crossed the Colorado River), and film sets. The river is also an important ecosystem and the home to many endangered species. Like every other river in the region, it's a tributary of the Colorado River. The Paria empties into the Colorado in Arizona just a little north of the Navajo Bridges.

Utah's Bridges: SR-87 Paria River Bridge in Kane County by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: SR-12 Escalante River Bridge (2)

May 2006 (37.775 Degrees, -111.419 Degrees) Escalante River Bridge

This photo of the SR-12 Escalante River Bridge really just shows the river, the riparian vegetation, and the canyon walls. The single span steel girder bridge is barely noticeable, which may have been the bridge designer's goal. However, I wanted to show that the bridge actually crosses the Escalante River (with its low banks and sandy bottom) since yesterday's photo just showed the abutment.

We have been traveling southwest over the last few days from the Green River Bridge in Emery County to the Freemont River Bridge in Wayne County to the Escalante River Bridge in Garfield County. Tomorrow we will continue southwest to the Paria River Bridge in Kane County, Utah near the border with Arizona. 

Utah's Bridges: SR-12 Escalante River Bridge (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: SR-12 Escalante River Bridge (1)

May 2006 (37.775 Degrees, -111.419 Degrees) Escalante River Bridge

State Route 12 Escalante River Bridge is a 103 ft long single span steel girder bridge on seat-type abutments.  In contrast to the sandstone-like appearance of yesterday's bridge, the stone facade on the barrier rail and abutment of today's bridge is less attractive (at least to me). Stone bridges are nice when you can see how they support the structure, but in this case the stone facade just weighs the bridge down.The designer was likely trying to match the weathered stones of the butte in the distance, but the stones are too dark.

The Escalante River was named (by explorer John Wesley Powell) after a Franciscan missionary who was the first European to explore Utah (in 1776). The river travels through beautiful sandstone gorges for 90 miles before flowing into Lake Powell. It can vary from a shallow creek to a raging torrent depending on the time of year.

State Route 12 is a 122 mile long scenic highway that crosses some of the most beautiful landscapes in the United States. It goes through Dixie National Forest, Bryce National Park, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the Aquarius Plateau, and ends at Capitol Reef National Park. It became a state highway in 1914.

Utah's Bridges: SR-12 Escalante River Bridge (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: SR-24 Freemont River Bridge

May 2006 (38.289 Degrees, -111.228 Degrees) Freemont River Bridge

State Route 24 Fremont River Bridge was built in 1960. It is a 80 ft long, three span continuous concrete haunched T girder bridge on a 30 degree skew. It has a 50 ft long span across the river and 15 ft long end spans. This bridge carries 425 vehicles a day on two traffic lanes and has a sufficiency rating of 81.2. The color of the concrete matches the sculpted sandstone cliffs and the steel railing gives the bridge an attractive, modern appearance.

The Freemont River flows from the Wasatch Plateau southwest for 95 miles to Muddy Creek near Hanksville where it turns into Dirty Devil Creek. It was named after the explorer John Charles Fremont.

State Route 24 is a 164 mile long scenic highway that connects I-70 near Green Valley to US-50 near Salina. The road was added to the state highway system in 1910.

Utah's Bridges: SR-24 Freemont River Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: I-70 Bridges over the Green River (2)

May 2006 (38.975 Degrees, -110.150 Degrees) 1-70 Bridge over the Green River

Another photo of I-70 crossing the Green River. The highway is 232 miles long and completed in 1957. There are no major cities along this highway. The federal government insisted the highway should be built in the middle of nowhere in order to connect California to the northeast U.S. The only choice that state officials had was to accept the federal plan or lose a national highway going through their state.

From the Green River, I-70 stretches 110 miles to the west without passing by a city, a rest area, or even a gas station. Consequently a traveler can enjoy a long ride with few signs of civilization.

Utah's Bridges: I-70 Bridges over the Green River (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: I-70 Bridges over the Green River (1)

May 2006 (38.975 Degrees, -110.150 Degrees) 1-70 Bridges over the Green River

After a long day's ride from Moab I finally arrived back at Green River. I took several photos of the two 44 ft wide I-70 Bridges over the Green River that are just south of the railroad bridge where we began our journey.  The bridges have a 572 ft long, three span, continuous Corten steel superstructure on pier walls and seat-type abutments. In 2010 the average daily traffic was 2725 vehicles a day with 14% truck traffic. The bridges were built in 1984 and have a sufficiency rating of 97.9%.

Southeastern Utah is part of the 'Four Corners' area that also includes portions of Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. It is mostly land belonging to the Ute, Hopi, Zuni, and Navajo nations and it's very rugged and beautiful. 

Utah's Bridges: I-70 Bridges over the Green River (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: US-191 Bridge over the Colorado River

May 2006 (38.605 Degrees, -109.578 Degrees) Colorado River Bridge

Another bridge over the Colorado River. I took this photo in the early morning (without much light) as I began my ride back to Green River. The pretty pedestrian bridge is a little to the right and outside of this photo. Moab (where this photo was taken) is a major recreation area in the scenic red rock canyons of Utah.

US-191 over the Colorado River is an eight span 1,007.3 ft long continuous steel girder bridge built in 1955. It has a sufficiency rating of 44 and an average daily traffic of 8205 vehicles. It carries two lanes of traffic and it's only 29.5 ft wide, which means inadequate shoulders. At $200 per square foot, it would cost $6 million to replace the bridge. The deck, superstructure, and substructure rate fair or better, bridges are supposed to last at least 75 years, and so it may be a while before this bridge is replaced.

Utah's Bridges: US-191 Bridge over the Colorado River by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: Wilson Arch

May 2006 (38.272 Degrees, -109.371 Degrees) Wilson Arch

Although there are not too many arch bridges near Moab there are many natural arches in the area. Wilson Arch is along US-191 but there are over 1,000 other natural arches in nearby Arches National Park. The forces of nature gradually form these arches, although many of them collapse before the process is completed. The Entrada Sandstone of this region is mostly eroded quartz and feldspar that becomes compacted by overlying layers and cemented by gypsum and lime that seeps through it and hardens.

The sandstone is gradually eroded by wind and flowing water. The expansion of ice crystals crack the rock and blowing winds remove particles until jagged fins remain.  More erosion cuts a hole through the fins, which vary from tens to hundreds of feet in length.

Wilson Arch is 91 ft long and 46 ft high. It was named after Joe Wilson, who was a pioneer who lived nearby. Although Wilson Arch probably gets less foot traffic than most bridges in the area, natural arches may have been some of the first footbridges and possibly inspired the first human-made arch bridges.

Utah's Bridges: Wilson Arch by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: Hatch Canyon Wash Bridge

May 2006 (38.201 Degrees, -109.375 Degrees) Hatch Canyon Wash Bridge

A few miles south of Blanding, SR-95 turned into US-191, and I began riding north towards Moab. Unlike the segment from Hite to Blanding, the ride from Blanding to Moab was mostly downhill, which was very welcome. I wonder if the ride would have been less exhausting if I had ridden clockwise instead of counterclockwise around southeast Utah?

Although the landscape continued to be spectacular, the bridges along this part of my ride were mostly ordinary steel girder spans. There is a very nice three span steel pedestrian truss bridge in Moab that carries hikers and mountain bikers to some of the canyon trails, but I didn't get a chance to photograph it.

Anyway, halfway between Blanding and Moab is a one span bridge over Hatch Canyon Wash. It is a 127 ft long steel girder bridge that was built in 1956. The bridge carries 3770 vehicles a day and has a Sufficiency Rating of 0.50. The Federal Highway Administration went through a major effort to identify scour critical bridges, including this structure. Considering the relatively large daily traffic, I wouldn't be surprised if this vulnerable structure wasn't replaced (at a cost of $723,000).

Utah's Bridges: Hatch Canyon Wash Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: White Canyon Wash Bridge

May 2006 (37.820 Degrees, -110.352 Degrees) White Canyon Wash Bridge

The last of the canyon crossings near Hite is this bridge over White Canyon Wash. The canyon is a little narrower and so it was built as a three span steel haunched girder bridge on inclined piers. According to the bridge maintenance report it has a main span of 87.9 ft and a total length of 226.1 ft. All three bridges we've recently studied carry 285 vehicles a day since they're a few miles apart on the same road (SR-95).

I took this photo in the early morning as I started my ride from Hite to Blanding. Maybe the early morning light made the colors particularly vivid. This was the last bridge I saw for many miles. The ride from Hite to Blanding was the most difficult of the whole trip. At Comb Ridge I passed a beautiful but very steep slotted canyon that climbed at a steep grade until my heart felt like it was going to explode. I kept waiting for the grade to end but it just kept climbing for 40 miles to Blanding.

Utah's Bridges: White Canyon Wash Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: Hite Crossing Bridge over the Colorado River (3)

May 2006 (37.890 Degrees, -110.369 Degrees) Hite Crossing Bridge

This bridge looks in great shape after 46 years. Perhaps the desert environment helps to protect it. I read that the Utah DOT does a good job of maintaining their bridges. I wonder when it was last painted? I like the silver paint. I also like the 'K' bracing, the thick curb, and the open rail. I think driving through an arch bridge is more interesting than driving over an arch bridge.

The way the cables are mounted to the arch ribs is a nice detail. There must be openings in the arch ribs so that maintenance crews can check on the cable anchors. I wonder how they would go about replacing them? Can they remove a cable without damaging the bridge?

I couldn't find the last time this bridge was painted in the maintenance report. Could it be the original paint? It's too bad the bridge is limited to HS-20 vehicles. Also, it's a shame that the first brace is only 15 ft above the roadway. Still, it's a nice bridge for a rural road.

If a 700 ft long bridge over a desert canyon was to be built today, I wonder if a through arch would still be used? The mayor of Shanghai was criticized for building a through arch (The Lupu Bridge) over the Haungpu River after building two cable stayed bridges over the river. Apparently the arch was much more expensive.

Utah's Bridges: Hite Crossing Bridge over the Colorado River (3) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: Hite Crossing Bridge over the Colorado River (2)

May 2006 (37.890 Degrees, -110.369 Degrees) Hite Crossing Bridge

A photo from the deck of the Hite Bridge over the Colorado River. For some reason, the railing stops on each side of the arch, leaving it vulnerable to errant vehicles. Did the engineer expect the arch to the job of a barrier rail?  I guess it's a good thing the bridge only carries a few hundred vehicles a day. Still, if I owned this bridge, I'd do a better job of protecting the arch.

According to the Utah DOT website, the three I-95 bridges crossing canyons in this area were cheaper than I first reported. According to the website, the Dirty Devil River Bridge cost $730,515.88, the Colorado River Bridge (that we are currently studying) only cost $993,243.70 (not $3 million which was said to be the bid estimate), and the White Canyon Wash Bridge (that we'll visit next) cost $178,327.68.

The first bridge we looked at in Utah was over the Green River, which is the chief tributary of the Colorado at Canyonlands National Park 20 miles to the north. The previous bridge we studied, the Dirty Devil empties into the Colorado a few miles downstream, at the beginning of Lake Powell. The Colorado River is the major river basin of the Southwest, beginning at 10,000 ft in the Rocky Mountains, flowing southwest into the Gulf of California, and carving some of the most spectacular canyons on the planet.

The most famous bridge over the Colorado currently is the Hoover Bypass Dam Bridge, which opened in October 2010. There was a lot of celebration about this deck arch bridge that was built to take vehicle traffic (and potential terrorists) away from a vulnerable structure. I guess I could try to photograph all of the Colorado River Crossings, but that would be quite a bit of work. There are several pedestrian bridges in the middle of the Grand Canyon and I'm not sure how many bridges are in Colorado. Still, I bet there are less than a dozen bridges that cross over the Colorado River.

Utah's Bridges: Hite Crossing Bridge over the Colorado River (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: Hite Crossing Bridge over the Colorado River (1)

May 2006 (37.890 Degrees, -110.369 Degrees) Hite Crossing Bridge

A few miles south of the Dirty Devil River Bridge near the north end of Lake Powell (on State Route 95) is the Hite Crossing Bridge. We can see that the canyon is a little wider here than at the previous bridge.

The Hite Bridge has a 550 ft long arch and a 738 ft bridge length compared to the 420 ft long arch and 625 ft length at the Dirty Devil.  Perhaps that's why they used a through arch for the Hite Crossing. Its able to support the deck with short columns above the arch and with short hangers below the arch. Both bridges were built at the same time, which must have been a field day for ironworkers.

The Hite Crossing is the only highway bridge across the Colorado between the Glen Canyon Bridge (185 miles to the south) and the Route 191 Bridge (110 miles to the north). They built the Hite Bridge, the Dirty Devil Bridge, and the White Canyon Bridge all at the same time to provide better roadway access across the Southwestern Desert while the Glen Canyon Dam was being built. The Hite Bridge was designed by David Sargent and advertised for construction in 1963 with a bid estimate of $3 million.

We'll take a closer look at this bridge tomorrow.

Utah's Bridges: Hite Crossing Bridge over the Colorado River (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: Dirty Devil River Bridge (3)

May 2006 (37.916, -110.389) Dirty Devil River Bridge

A closer look at the Dirty Devil River Bridge that includes a view of the river. The explorer John Wesley Powell unintentionally named the river when he cried, "It's a dirty devil!" while navigating its currents. In my photo it really does look dirty. I read that it carries so much salt that the river has to be cleaned before it's emptied into Powell's namesake reservoir.

Conservationists are fond of reminding us that Glen Canyon Dam, Lake Powell Reservoir, this bridge (and me) are just an infinitesimal blip in geological time. With my meager knowledge of geology, I'm still torn between an urge to write about the bridge and to write about the landscape. Not that I know that much about why this bridge was built, who designed it, or who paid for it.

In today's photo we can see the 'X' bracing between the arch ribs, the steel collars that hold the arch segments together, the spandrel columns supporting the deck, the silver paint covering the steel, the amount of rock that was removed to plant the foundation into solid ground, etc. Still, I can't help noticing the huge butte (all that is left of some eroded mountain) hovering in the distance. Or sympathize with the eroded canyon, dug up by flowing water over millions of years. Or envy the trees (the only green vegetation) at the canyon's bottom.

Utah's Bridges: Dirty Devil River Bridge (3) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: Dirty Devil River Bridge (2)

May 2006 (37.91581, -110.38868) Dirty Devil River Bridge

The Freemont River and Muddy Creek come together near Hanksville to form the Dirty Devil, which flows for 80 miles before emptying into Lake Powell. In the photo above, we see red cliffs sitting above the white sandstone layer that is deeply cut by this river. Today's bridge crosses over this steep canyon at PM 50 on SR-95.

This steel deck arch bridge is 625 ft long with a 420 ft long arch span. It was built in 1965 (along with two other bridges over nearby canyons). I'm guessing the arch was built while it was supported by towers. Then the spandrel columns and deck were put on top.

I wasn't able to find too much information on this bridge. The main reference I've been using lately is 'A Traveler's Guide to the Geology of the Colorado Plateau.' This excellent book provides descriptions of the region's geology based on the post miles of highways. Too bad I don't have something similar for the region's bridges.

According to the latest inspection report in the Ugly Bridge Website, this bridge has an average daily traffic of only 285 vehicles (57 trucks) and has a sufficiency rating of 90.3.

We'll take another look at this spectacular bridge tomorrow.

Utah's Bridges: Dirty Devil River Bridge (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Utah's Bridges: Hog Springs Bridge in Garfield County

May 2006 (37.963 Degrees, -110.492 Degrees) Hog Springs Bridge

I continued riding my bike south on State Route 95 to PM 33.1 and the trailhead for Hog Canyon. There is a paved parking lot and the trail begins with a simple suspension bridge across the North Wash.  The bridge is only 70 ft long but it's supported by timber floor beams strung to steel suspension cables.

Past the bridge is a 30 minute hike through a steep canyon to natural springs, a Native American rock painting, and a waterfall. More information on Hog Springs is available on the Web. 

Utah's Bridges: Hog Springs Bridge in Garfield County by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.