Zion National Park on Tuesday reopened a bridge connecting Zion Lodge to the popular Emerald Pools hiking trails that weave through ephemeral waterfalls and essential water bodies for wildlife.
“Reopening this bridge restores a critical connection to one of Zion’s most iconic trail systems,” said Jeff Bradybaugh, superintendent of Zion National Park, in a press release. “We appreciate our visitors’ patience and support as we worked to ensure this structure can safely serve future generations.”
The bridge has been closed since May 2023. That spring, after a record wet winter in Utah, rushing snowmelt triggered a landslide that damaged the bridge’s concrete abutments. Ongoing ground movement beneath the bridge had also destabilized its foundation. “The ground in that area had been naturally prone to shifting well before the landslide due to the park’s dynamic environmental conditions,” Matthew Fink, spokesperson for Zion National Park, told The Tribune. “Zion regularly experiences a combination of intense heat, rain, and freezing, all of which gradually affect the landscape over time.”
For the past two years, National Park Service engineers and contracted construction crews have been planning, designing and constructing a new foundation for the bridge on stabler ground 100-feet upstream.
(Zion National Park) Railing welding for the Emerald Pools Bridge Construction
While the old foundation was damaged, the steel bridge itself was still safe. So crews used a large crane to move the structure, which was initially built by St. George Steel in 1983. “We get to keep this piece of history that’s been in our park for many, many years,” said Malynn Marshall, Zion National Park Engineering Technician, in a video released by the park.
To increase the resiliency of the bridge well into the future, construction crews dug the foundation deeper into the ground. The park predicts that the Virgin River, which the Emerald Pools Bridge crosses, will widen over time. That’s because the park is allowing gabions — wire mesh baskets filled with rocks and dirt that historically controlled the flow of the river — to erode away, Fink said. As the river widens, the bridge’s concrete abutment that now sits on the east bank may end up in the middle of the river. Rather than constructing a new bridge, the park will be able to just add on an additional structure.
“This plan for the new bridge was intended to get ahead of what inevitably will be the Virgin River widening and sort of cutting a new course into the future,” Fink said.
(Zion National Park) Construction crews moving the emerald pools bridge upstream
The bridge relocation was funded by visitor entrance and recreation fees. Zion is the second most visited national park in the nation with more than four million annual visitors.
Fink said the project provided the park the opportunity to plan for the millions of visitors who will use the bridge for generations to come.
