Birthday Arch, Utah

Another great arch hike. Soooooooo many arches in the American Southwest. 

This is called Birthday Arch. I don't know why it is called that way, but we gave it a try, because we were camping nearby. 
This hike is near the town Big Water, Utah. There are some dispersed camping in the area and since we camped at one of them, we hiked this one. Parking lot is just along the road. Maybe 2-3 cars can be parked. There was no car there and we did not see anybody in the entire hike. 5 miles of out and back hike. 

Little Arch

First attraction of this hike is "Little Arch"
It was indeed little, so it was hard to locate, but isn't it neat? Over the Little Arch, you can see the remnant of morning sunrise orange. It was nice crisp morning. 

Going down to the Wash

Then we went down to the main wash that leads to Birthday Arch, we went down the pretty pink rock. It is wavy (left picture). 

Birthday Arch

After some walk in the wash, rock walk leads to the arch. It is actually hard to spot the arch from distance, as you can see in the left picture. As you get closer to the arch, it gets more clear that it IS an arch. It is possible to go right under the arch. Much bigger than I anticipated as you can see in the below picture. Interestingly the wall behind the arch has cool stripes with black and white and brown. We had early lunch under the arch. Priceless time. 

Birthday Arch

Stripes

Another interesting stripes near the arch. 3D stripes! I don't know how these were made, but fascinating. 

After we enjoyed Birthday Arch, we went other side of wash to another small arch. In the above picture, can you see the Birthday arch through this little arch? It is nice to see two arch in one! Then we trace back to the parking lot. The last part of the hike was tedious because we had to walk a mile on a very sandy section just along the road. Despite that, still worth the effort to see Birthday arch.