Thursday, November 10, 2011

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.
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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.

4 comments:

martha merriam said...

The geology in much of Arizona and Utah is comprised "layer cake" sedimentary rocks. Not too exciting for a Californian, but the bridge is pretty.

Mark Yashinsky said...

I don't think we get to see such a variety of geological structures (mesas, buttes, canyons, etc) in California.

martha merriam said...

I think I meant to say a structural geologist would not be doing cartwheels. Now a geomorphologist would be photographing like mad. I like the photo of the Hite Crossing Bridge you posted today. Are you going to put up a photo of the Oct 2010 Colorado River bridge before you stop posting CO River bridge photos?

Mark Yashinsky said...

I wish I had a photo of the Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge. If I can make a trip to Arizona this winter, maybe I can do a series on its bridges in the future.