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| Hiking | 7.00 Miles |
1,500 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.00 Miles | 5 Hrs | | 1.40 mph |
| 1,500 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | Note to hike author: Good call on the "Wander" classification.
Over New Year's weekend, I car-camped for two nights next to the small butte that is just outside of the Wilderness and north of Courthouse Rock. Having looked at topos in advance (but having forgotten to bring said topos with us), we knew that there was a "natural arch" west of our camp. Once we arrived to the area, we saw a natural arch west of camp, perhaps 2-3 miles away and 1,000-1,500 feel up in elevation, and we decided to hike toward it. (However, looking at the topo again, I'm not convinced that the arch on the map and the arch we hiked to were actually the same one. Also, "our" arch appeared to be at the top of an enormous tombstone-shaped crag, so it would be virtually impossible to actually reach the arch itself without climbing gear, which we lacked.)
We began our hike by going down the Ben Avery Trail(?) into the Wilderness. About 5 minutes into the Wilderness, we turned right/west and went off-trail. Looking toward the crag that contains the arch, you'll see a small watershed that slopes down and left from the crag/arch. This is roughly the path you'll want to take if you go where we went. (If we had made a beeline from our camp to the arch, we would have encountered some moderately-sized sheer cliffs going up toward the arch.) As you approach the slope, you'll likely notice a wash on your left that becomes deeper as you approach the slope. There were some small pools of water in here where wildlife could drink. Around the same time, you might also notice a little-used road that comes in from the right. (You'll see on a map that this road is parallel to and northwest of the road that you drove in on.) As you transition from flat terrain to mountainous terrain, you'll see a couple options for heading up toward the arch. I know there are at least two routes that would work, because my group momentarily split up -- they beared right, and I stayed straight/left along the wash/canyon for a little while longer, hoping to see critters.
From here, the terrain gets steep, but it's not too difficult or treacherous if you just follow the ridgeline that goes up toward the arch. Once or twice, you might look ahead and ask yourself "is this actually hikeable?" but as you press onward you'll find that it's not that bad. There are even some game trails that you can follow from time to time. When we did this hike in the mid-afternoon on a winter day, we actually reached a point where the sun went behind the crag and shined through the arch. (I think azpride got a photo of me standing in the ~6'x6' patch of light that was coming through the arch. If he had his camera in a quick-draw holster, he could have gotten a really cool shot of a small cholla illuminated by sunlight but surrounded by shade, but the sunny patch was moving pretty quickly and the opportunity vanished.) The ridgeline eventually got us up to a knifeblade-like ridge that let us look all the way back east toward our camp, or pretty far west down the next watershed. After exploring the upper portion of the next watershed, and hiking most of the way around the back of the tombstone-shaped crag containing the arch, we made this our turn-around point and headed back to camp.
One of my hiking buddies is a novice rock climber, and he said that a person with the right gear would be able to climb (at least part of the way) up the back of the crag if they wanted to reach the arch. We didn't try, so we don't know how quickly it might become sketchy, but at least initially it looks climbable.
Since the off-trail terrain isn't bad, I actually suggest a full-day hike or a backpacking trip for this area, because it seemed like the farther in we went, the niftier it became. |
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"The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom. Yet to camp out at all implies some measure of this delight."
-- Theodore Roosevelt, The Publishers' Weekly, Nov. 25, 1905 |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
until after midnight and only got 3.5 hours of sleep. 
](https://hikearizona.com/dex2/images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall")
