A wedding reception in my extended family justified a weekend trip to the Uintah Basin in northeast Utah for my wife, my oldest daughter, my brother David and myself. The reception was Friday night so we were hoping to spend the rest of the weekend at the family cabin north of Vernal. However, the summer has been so dry (with LOTS of wild fires) the spring that provides water to the cabin had gone dry. With no water at the cabin, we choose to stay in Vernal with my folks. Saturday we did drive up to the cabin but didn’t stay long. Instead we headed for home in Utah Valley via the “Wyoming route”.
From Manila Utah we headed into Wyoming and then turned south at Lonetree Wyoming on a forest service road to Hoop Lake. As soon as we entered Utah again, the road passes through a narrow gap in a rock ridge where we understood there was a natural arch located.
Just as we entered the gap, we found several smaller class ‘D’ natural arches in the cliff just above the road and directly across from a natural spring that bubbles up there.
We had to travel the road towards Hoop Lake for another 1/4 mile or so in order to get a good look at the class ‘C’ arch in the skyline high on the ridge on our left (north) that we were looking for. I suppose the name of this arch should be Hoop Lake Arch since the lake is just a short distance further down the same road.
After taking a few pictures of the arch from the road, we did continue down the road to Hoop Lake. The lake water level was low reflecting the dry year. (If the water gets any lower, they are going to have to hand out water bottles and sunscreen to the fish.)
Then it was back to Lonetree and west through Evanston to home in Utah again.