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.