Sunset Arch

When we were done hiking Coyote Gulch we headed for our next planned adventure of the day, which was a sunset hike to Sunset Arch!  We had read about and seen photos of Sunset Arch in the guide book that we had and knew it was something we didn't want to miss.  The hike was described as easy but without any marked trail so we were hoping this would mean we might have it to ourselves.  Sure enough, we did!  We ended up not see a single other soul in our time to and from the arch.  It was wonderful!

As we left the Dry Fork of Coyote Gulch trailhead we turned left and continued down Hole in the Rock road until we reached 40 Mile Ridge Road, then we followed this road about 4 miles to a marked trailhead on the left.  This trailhead was for a different hike, and our book recommended hiking from there to Sunset Arch, which was in the opposite direction from the trailhead.  We instead opted to backtrack along 40 Mile Ridge Road to a spot we had seen on the way in that looked like it would make a good campsite (you can camp pretty much anywhere as long as it is an area that has already been disturbed by humans).  We found our spot and it was indeed a terrific place to camp.  After setting up our camp and relaxing for a few minutes we got our gear ready, plugged the coordinates for the arch into our GPS unit (the coordinates were provided in our guide book), and off we went across the open desert right from our campsite. 



We couldn't see the arch from our campsite, but we knew which way to go thanks to the GPS.  After walking about 3/4 of a mile across the desert we got our first glimpse of the arch, still over a quarter of a mile away.  It was fascinating to see from a distance, and we wondered just how big it would be once we got up close to it.  We kept walking towards the arch and reached the base of it a few minutes later, 1.15 miles from our campsite.  Indeed, it was much bigger than we thought it would be when viewing it from a quarter mile away!  The arch was mind-boggling, just standing there all by itself surrounded by nothing but relatively flat desert.  We spent about an hour admiring and photographing the arch, then just after sunset we headed back to our campsite, arriving just as it was starting to get really dark.  Jessica prepared a delicious meal over the camp stove then we washed up and crawled into the tent to get some much-needed rest before the next adventure which awaited us the following morning: Willow Gulch and Broken Bow Arch!