Babylon Arch

 

One of the hiking groups that I belong to is called the “Rusty Iron Trekkers”.  We live in Iron County, Utah, named because the early settlers mined and smelted iron ore here.  You can just imagine what the rusty stands for, as the members are mostly senior citizens. 

This morning, 6 of us drove south of here and hiked a trail out to the Babylon Arch.  This sandstone arch is named for an abandoned mining town near there called Babylon.  I do know that you can drive to what remains of the town, but I am not sure how close it was to our location.  Just getting near to the trailhead was a bit harrowing as the road was not really good.  We drove as far as we could and then walked the rest of the road to our starting point.  The trail is about 2.6 miles out and back with an elevation change of about 400’. 

So this turned out to be another of the local difficult hikes, although it wasn’t that far.  We were walking in deep sand and scrambling over rocks, all the while going mainly down slope towards the arch.  At one point near the arch, we slid down a steep sandy part of the trail, which wasn’t bad.  Of course, we were dreading having to climb back up on our way out. In this photo, you can see 2 of our group while we were still on the upper and flatter part of the trail.  We were headed towards the green area further out and much lower.

This is a very picturesque trail, with sandstone formations popping out all over the place. 

Here, finally, was the arch.  Very unique, but I thought it would be much larger, like the ones at Arches National Park. 

I did the hike and I’m glad that I did, but would probably not do it again.  I’ve done several here like that!  On the other hand, there are many trails here that I have done multiple times.  With the wildflowers starting to come out, I will be enjoying my favorite hikes soon.