- [Narrator] The sequence in which you see the parks is not important, nor is the type of conveyance in which you come.

The important thing is that you do come, for once you have visited the Canyons and learned to love them, you're as sure to return as the swallows to Capistrano.

(upbeat music) (birds chirping) (country music) - Natural Bridges was the first National Park unit in Utah.

While some of the bigger monuments went on to become parks, we've stayed a national monument.

Cass Hite is the first white man that was credited with discovering the Bridges, and he came in and he originally named them for his children.

And then when we returned into a national monument by Teddy, originally they were given the name, Senator, Congressman and President.

Then in the seventies, they were renamed yet again to better reflect the Native American culture in the area, and they were renamed Sipapu, Kachina and Owachomo.

(country music) This society that was here at the time was a one of the first agrarian societies in the area, so they were actually farming up on top of the Mesas, but they were living about halfway down normally on the canyon walls.

(country music) We call 'em the Ancestral Puebloans.

They left the area in approximately 1100, 1200 AD.

We're still unsure as to exactly why they left the area, but they left behind many, many ruin sites and many, many petroglyph and pictograph panels to show that they were here and to show what they were doing here at the time.

So we're standing in front of Sipapu.

Sipapu is our middle-aged bridge.

Geologists believe that she's approximately 40,000 years old.

She's about as wide as a two-lane highway, and at her base, she is actually wide enough.

We'd have to knock off about the top 10 feet of it, but we could actually fit the pyramid of Giza underneath her as well.

The second bridge in the loop drive here in the park is Kachina.

She's our young bridge.

She's only about 20,000 years old.

She's still very, very thick.

She's over a hundred feet thick.

She's still losing rock in rock falls.

In fact, in the early 2000s, late 90s, early 2000s, she lost five metric tons of rock in one rockfall.

So she's still shedding rock and she's still getting smaller.

Owachomo is our oldest bridge.

She's approximately 60,000 years old.

As opposed to this bridge in Kachina, which I told you was roughly a hundred feet thick, Owachomo is now only nine feet thick.

She's so old that the water, when it's running actually has moved past her now.

So she has no running water that moves underneath her anymore, which is one of the defining features of a natural bridge is that running water is what actually initially started the reactions that created it.

(spirited upbeat music) Natural Bridges was the first international DarkSky park.

First one in the world, we were designated in 2007.

We're a gold rated park, which means we've one of the highest ratings.

We're one of the three darkest park units in the US and we're one of the darkest spots in the United States.

Period.

(spirited music) (cicadas chirping) You know, I still get up in the mornings now and have my morning cup of tea out on the back porch, and it still causes me to gasp and think about what a lucky person I am to actually live out here in the monument.

So I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

Between the dark skies and these canyons, I don't think I'll actually ever get used to the beauty here out here.

(spirited music) Most of my visitors tend to have only planned for an hour or two visit here.

And while that's enough to see the basics of the park, that's not really enough to enjoy the park itself.

My biggest piece of advice is to plan on giving us at least a day of your time.

And that way you can best enjoy all of the different features that the monument has to offer.

(spirited music) (birds chirping)