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Arch Canyon, Hotel Rock, Hole in the Rock
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The First Annual Montero Club Rally was held over the Easter weekend of 1998 at Arch canyon Utah. Pedro and his girlfriend Kira Came along with My wife Lucy, daughter Theresa and I From San Diego. Pedro was driving his newly acquired 95 LS running 33" Super Swamper Thornbirds and I was driving My 90 4dr with LSD and 33" BFG All Terrains. We left San Diego at around 8 PM Tuesday night and arrived at Arch Canyon at 8 am the next morning. We were tired from the long drive and slept the majority of the day. I woke that afternoon and decided to explore the area I found an interesting trail and ended up doing about half of Hotel Rock trail before deciding to turn around and wait for Lloyd as the trail was getting difficult and I didn't want to get stuck solo. Lloyd wasn't scheduled to arrive until Thursday night so we decided to run the Arch Canyon trail the next day.
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Arch Canyon was fairly easy but did have a couple of tricky spots. Pedro dented in his skid plate during a steam crossing on a rock that was hidden under water. This trail is very scenic and is probably the most beautiful trail I have ever been on. The trail winds through the canyon and crosses the stream in many places. If you look carefully at the Canyon walls you can see the ancient cliff dwellings still intact. The trail ends at a beautiful campsite underneath some pine trees. The trail takes about 4- 5 hours both ways depending on how much time is taken to stop
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and explore. We returned to camp that evening and waited for Lloyd's arrival. We were kind of anxious because we had never met Lloyd and only previously exchanged E-Mail. Lloyd and his fiend Leroy came skidding into camp in his 93 SR with locker on 33" BFG Mud Terrains and Hydraulic winch around 8 that evening. We exchanged introductions and and immediately Began to talk Montero's. It's great being in the presence
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The Top of Arch Canyon Looking Down
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of a fellow Montero owner especially after being the loner for so long! We sat around the campfire that night Talked Monteros and decided to run Hotel Rock the next day.
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Hotel Rock Is a short but difficult trail. The trail head is right next to entrance to Arch Canyon. We left camp late that morning and began our ascent up the trail. This trail is non stop obstacles and pretty intense. Steep rock ledges come right after another. Our Montero's did quite well especially Pedro's after we found out he was in four wheel high until over halfway up the trail! (this was his first trip) The difficulty was worth it once we made it to the end of the trail. The Anasazai ruins on the base of Hotel Rock are incredibly well preserved and you can walk into them and explore. For some reason, the way down seemed more difficult than the way up.
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Hole in the rock is a historic Mormon Pioneer wagon trail. In some spots you can still see the two wheel tracks imbedded in the rock of the trail. We Camped at the trailhead under some Cottonwoods that night. Lloyd got spooked by a mountain lion while exploring the area. This trail is long and takes about 8 hours to complete one way! We set out the next morning and had to pull over to let a group of full sized vehicles by on their way out. They were in extremely bad shape. One being towed and another had a kid walking next to the vehicle with a rope holding the suspension together! We spent allot of time on the way in closing the illegal bypasses they created. Remember to Tread Lightly and stick to established trails! We set up camp that afternoon on a flat section of slickrock. We took a branch off of the main trail That led down to some switch backs and down the canyon wall to lake Powell (the Rincon) This trail was quite difficult and contained a series of steep ledges. I had put a branch through the sidewall of my tire at the Lake and had to drive back up with The 31 inch spare. It got dark on the way out and getting back to camp that night was interesting to say the least. The next day we completed the trail and started the way out. Pedro had to get back to work the following day so we drove all the way out that day, we didn't reach the trailhead till after dark, Lloyd camped out at the trailhead while Pedro And I said our good-byes to Lloyd and Started our Long trip home to San Diego.
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This rather steep ledge was one of the first obstacles on the trail. It had a bypass but as you can see we chose not to take it. Getting back up this one was the most fun.
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As you can see the the trail is very rough in some spots. Slow travel on these sections is a must.
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