Triple Arch

We drove to the Bulldog Canyon Trailhead In Tonto National Forest to hike to Triple Arch and back, 8.5 mies round trip with 1,000 ft of overall gain. This hike is in the Goldfield Mountains and the scenery/rock formations were fabulous to see. We would not see any other hikers until we were well on our way back, and only 2 people.

The first 0.6 miles was along an ORV route, before going on an area of many trails/boot tracks. It was important for us to track our route to make sure we took the right trails back again.

Some of the rock formations we saw along our way.

One of many lovely saguaros

bird on it's nest on the side of a saguaro

We saw quite a bit or water along the way today in a variety of washes and pools.

rock formation reflecting in a shallow pool

More lovely rock formations along our hike.

More water on the trail

The first 3 miles or so was on trail and was a gentleman up and down.

I enjoyed seeing the water in the desert.

The "trail" would end and we continued hiking down a wash.

We then headed up a small wash, going up and over a steep ridge.

View from a level spot on the ridge, looking back, the yellow to the left our poppy fields.

View on the far side of the ridge

We hiked down another wash.

View of Triple Arch from the south side of the arch

zoom of the arch from the south side

view of the arch from around to the north side

zoom of the arch from the north side

After a lunch break, we returned the way we had come. Up on the ridge looking down into the canyon (center of photo) that we hiked back down. Weaver's Needle in the far distance

Up and over the ridge were cairns to follow

More views on our return

As we neared the end of the trail, we did have another view of Weaver's Needle in the far distance.

some of the wildflowers we saw along the trail today: