East Side Arch

Right near the tunnel is an arch, but I did not know that. I just saw this slickrock section to the right of Upper Pine Creek and I thought that it might be fun to explore. I was shocked to find that a few minutes into my hike that there was an arch just up the slickrock slope. I naturally had to go check it out. It was not too huge in terms of arches, but it was still pretty neat. There was a little slot right behind it which I made sure to check out. I continued up the hill past the arch. There was a canyon that I thought might be interesting. It was really flat and open for quite some time. Then it started to narrow up and get steep. I explored up the canyon until I felt that the canyon was getting too treacherous. I looked around and there were places to both the right and to the left that one may be able to use to access the East Rim if you just went that way instead of trying to stay in the canyon bottom. I went back down and went all the way down the canyon to where it poured off into Pine Creek. This was the spot that back in February, Jacqueline and I got to see those incredible waterfalls. There was still a bit of water left in a big stinky pothole, but other than that, this canyon was bare dry. I climbed back up and over the semi-steep slickrock section, went past the arch, and back to my truck. I would definitely go back to this place again as there is so much to explore that I just did not even get to.