We accessed the trail head and headed into the canyon. Since the upper portion of the canyon is designated a critical habitat for the Mexican Spotted Owl, it is closed to motorized vehicles but if you are a hiking enthusiast or horseman, you can continue further up the canyon. Today, it will be an 8 mile trek into the canyon and 8 miles back out. The canyon boasts a perennial stream that meanders through the varied terrain and the trail crosses it many, many times. It was clear that in the early Spring, this "stream" must become a raging torrent of water as there was plenty of evidence of tree litter clinging to the lower branches of the cottonwood trees. Some of that litter was probably 20 feet in the air!!
The trail was mostly sand with a few areas of loose rock and a few areas of sliprock. It wound its way through the canyon in amongst cottonwood and juniper with an abundance of scotch pine when we hit the forest boundary. It was a very pleasant trip and I was even lucky enough to spot some ancient Anasazi Ruins way up on the face of the sandstone cliffs. It was such a delight to see!!
The trail ended for motorized vehicles at a rather quaint little camping spot amongst the huge pine trees and gave a good view of the mighty Arch for which I am sure the canyon was named after. All in all, it was a most enjoyable trip all the way in and back out to the trailhead.
It was 3:30 by the time we were done with the Arch Canyon Trail so we thought we would try finding the Hotel Rock Trail
This is a short but steep and rough climb up the mesa from which Arch canyon was created. Only 3 miles long, it challenges one every inch of the way. Surprisingly, the side by side took to the climb incredibly well. John was very pleased with the way the machine performed.
The trail took us from the canyon floor and led to an immediate climb up the face of the mesa on slickrock. The trail was usually pretty easy to see from all the scrapes and tire marks on the rock from previous vehicles but there were a few times that it was the rock cairns that kept us on track. It was an incredible journey up the face of this mesa but well worth it to finally reach the top and see Hotel Rock again - another Anasazi Ruin site.
It took us an hour to climb the three miles and it was getting late so we quickly took a few pictures of the ruins then headed back down the trail. We had 3 miles of rock crawling to do to get back down to the canyon floor!
Forty five minutes later, we were safely back to the canyon floor and on our way back to camp. What an incredible trail!!
We arrived back at camp just as the last of the Sunday football games was starting so quickly got settled in and watched that while John got supper started!!
Today's ride was by far the best ride to date as far as I am concerned. John says that every day out on the trail is a good day and I must agree but somedays are just better than others!! Life is good!!
 |
| Start of Arch Canyon trail |
 |
| Nice reflection |
 |
| Spotted some ruins |
 |
| The Arch at the end of the trail |
 |
| Headed back out |
 |
| The start of Hotel Rock trail |
 |
| It's a long climb to the top of the Mesa |
 |
| Hotel Rock |
No comments:
Post a Comment