The power of erosion built Zion National Park. And just because there are roads and trails now, that doesn’t mean the landscape is going to let up.
“If you were to videotape this canyon over the course of a million years, and then speed it up, it would look like this whole place is falling apart,” Zion physical scientist Robyn Henderek said.
Landslides and falling rocks are common in Zion. In fact, they’re “integral to the canyon forming processes,” Henderek said. “It's the reason why this looks so beautiful to us. Where we find challenges is when we're in the way of these rock falls.”
Back in 2023, after one of southern Utah’s wettest winters on record, the rush of spring snowmelt triggered landslides across the region. One hit a support structure for the bridge over the Virgin River that takes hikers to Emerald Pools Trail.
The concrete abutment moved enough to shear off the bolts holding the metal bridge in place. Because the landslide also weakened the ground, it essentially became a geologic time bomb that would always be vulnerable to future movement.
“Imagine putting something as important as the abutment of a bridge on a slip and slide,” she said. “So, we wanted to move the bridge abutment off the slip and slide onto more stable ground.”
The bridge closed in May 2023, and the plan was to move it to a more secure spot about 100 feet upstream. After nearly two years, Zion expects to reopen the bridge between mid-May and mid-June.
“I can't tell you how many people have been like, ‘Oh, thank God. I love that bridge. I miss being able to go to the lodge and be able to access Lower Emerald Pools from there,” park spokesman Matthew Fink said.
The bridge allows a direct route to the trail from the Zion Lodge. Without it, people need to take the park shuttle bus to the next stop and hike back on the other side of the river.
Zion’s visitation has skyrocketed in recent years. In 2024, it became the second most visited park nationwide with nearly 5 million visitors.
“This is one of our most popular destinations in the park, for sure, and having this bridge closed down wasn't ideal,” Fink said. “Of course, we had to do it for safety, but this has definitely been a priority for us to restore the bridge.”
To preserve the original character, the new abutments will include some of the decorative stone salvaged from the previous structures. The bridge will be reused entirely, hoisted by a crane onto the concrete supports once construction is completed.
The project also fits into Zion’s broader plan to allow the Virgin River to return to its natural flow patterns, Henderek said.
Next to the bridge construction site, she stood on top of a levee built nearly a century ago that narrows the Virgin River’s channel. As the park allows embankments like this to wash away, the river will be able to spread out like it did historically and retake the floodplain between the levee and the park road. In anticipation of that, the bridge’s east side abutment will be built to handle being surrounded by water someday.
In this constantly changing environment, however, there’s no guarantee of the new bridge’s permanence.
“Look up the slope, you'll see quite a bit of rocks above us,” Henderek said as she motioned toward the steep red rock canyon wall across the river. “These rocks are at risk of failure. They will be coming down. It's not a question of ‘if,’ it's a question of ‘when.’”
That means building infrastructure here will always come with some risk, she said, but “it's about making the most informed decisions to reduce the risk as much as possible.”
