Babylon Arch

Babylon Arch

Babylon Arch is a must-see if you're in the Hurricane, Utah area.  We were visiting Saint George for a family reunion in June of 2025.  I wanted to hike to some arches in the area, and an internet search brought up Babylon Arch.  We left from Saint George at 5 a.m. so that we'd reach the trailhead just after sunrise and avoid hiking in the heat of the day.

To get to the Babylon Arch trailhead, you can simply put it in your Google Maps and follow the navigation to Babylon Arch trailhead.  Take I-15 until the Leeds/Silver Reed exit, which is exit #22.  Follow Main Street through Leeds until 900 North.  Turn right onto 900 North and follow the road for around 4 miles until you get to Sand Cove.  You can park there and hike from there to the arch, but we kept going following Google Maps until it told us we were at the trailhead and we parked.  We probably could have kept going on the sandy road because we were driving an expedition that had high clearance and four wheel drive.  We didn't mind walking, though, and it wasn't very far to the Primitive Camp Area, which is where the Babylon Arch trailhead is.  Google Maps has you park before the trailhead actually begins, so you could try putting the Sand Cove Primitive Camp Area in your google maps instead, or just keep going when Google Maps says you have reached the trailhead.

Here are some photos to help you find the arch:

signs as you're driving towards the trail head

We saw 2 desert tortoises while hiking that day

Turn left towards Sand Cove and then turn right towards Babylon Arch trailhead and Sand Cove Primitive Camp Area

This is where we parked our car, although we could have kept going

Go through the Sandstone Mountain gate and then look to your right for the arch trailhead

Go through this gate and then to the right

The arch trailhead.  The trail is very well marked.  Just look for arch signs

The hike reminds me so much of Moab, I loved hiking amidst those red rocks

There are a lot of tiny arches along the hike

We realized afterwards that we had gone off the trail and gone the easy way down to the arch.  The trail actually goes on a very steep, sandy hill.  The longer, more round-about way is easier to climb back up, although the sand is deep both ways.

The large rock in the middle of this photo is actually the side of the arch.  My husband has almost reached it in this photo.

This sign is right next to the arch

There is our first view of Babylon Arch, free-standing in the sand

Babylon Arch has a few other small openings in it

Someone had left this painted rock inside Babylon Arch in one of the many little "cubbies"

the inside of Babylon Arch

My husband and I underneath Babylon Arch

Looking up from underneath Babylon Arch

another of the tiny arches on the side of Babylon Arch

Me inside Babylon Arch

Peeking out the side window of Babylon Arch

Some of the many surrounding arches that you can view from Babylon Arch

Babylon Arch

view from the arch

The sandy hill directly in front of the arch is the harder way to get back.  The sandy is so thick and it's so steep.  Every step you take you sink back to where you were before.  It took me forever to get up this hill, and my calves got quite a workout!  You could leave the arch to the right and still hike through deep sandy, but not quite as steep so it wouldn't be quite as hard.

This is the sign right by the arch

Looking back at the arch from part-way up the steep sandy hill

My husband took these photos of me slowly making my way up the steep hill.  My feet sunk so much with every step that it felt like I wasn't making any progress at all!

looking back down at Babylon Arch and the progress I've made up the steep sandy hill

Two crows took their perch on top of some slickrock nearby

The signs were just as necessary on the way back as on the way to the arch, to be sure we didn't get lost

I loved seeing all of the tiny arches and openings on the way back to the trailhead

It would have been fun to try to visit all of the different arches that we saw on the hike

We were able to follow the trail markings perfectly until the very end, right before we reached the trailhead!  We took a wrong turn and ended up adding a little distance to our hike.  The arch is exactly half a mile from the trailhead if you follow all of the signs directly to the arch.  Taking a wrong turn at the end of the hike started an all new adventure that turned our very short hike into a rather longer hike!

The green dot is the Babylon Arch trailhead, and Babylon Arch is the blue dot

Since we took the wrong way back to the trailhead, we headed back over to where we started and that's when we noticed another arch nearby, high up in the cliffs.  I had seen on my Natural Atlas app that there was a "natural arch" close to Babylon Arch, so I went over to investigate this arch to see if it might be the natural arch from the app.

This is the arch that we saw high in the cliffs.  I haven't been able to discover a name for it, so I decided to call it Babylon Window because of how close it is to the Babylon Arch trailhead.

We explored a little bit further, and found this jug-handle arch, which I can't find the name of either, so I named it Babylon Jug-handle

The Jug-handle arch also didn't appear to be the natural arch on the map, so I kept looking around the area.  I saw this arch off in the distance:

Then I decided to look at Google Maps to see if I could figure out where the natural arch was.  I saw another arch nearby -- Painted Arch.  Google Maps claimed it was only a 2 minute walk from my current location, so I decided we ought to go for it!  Well, Google Maps can't navigate very well out there and it took us on a wild goose-chase trying to find Painted Arch.

This is how far out of the way we ended up by trying to follow Google Maps.  Our hike started from Babylon Arch and ended back at our car, with a big detour trying to find Painted Arch.

I looked up information on the internet about Painted Arch, and we decided to try to find it using only the dot on Google Maps, without the navigation.  We did end up finding it.  You can read about our hike to the arch on my post here:  Painted Arch

Painted Arch

It turns out that Painted Arch actually was the "natural arch" listed on my Natural Atlas app, as you can see from the two photos below, one from Google Maps, and the other from Natural Atlas.  Notice how Painted Arch and the Natural Arch both line up directly in the line between Babylon Arch and Sandstone Mountain.

Screenshot from Natural Atlas

screenshot from Google Maps

One really fun thing about our hike to Painted Arch was that we got to see 2 desert tortoises, one very small one and one medium-sized one.

This desert tortoise was about one foot long.  We also saw a much smaller one of about 5 inches long

After hiking both the Babylon Arch Trail and the Painted Arch trail, my shoes felt like they had a cup of sand in them!  I dumped them out and the sand just kept on coming!  And then after I got home I pulled the insoles out and even more sand came out!  To say that these trails are sandy would be an understatement!

My blog posts about the other arches near the Babylon Arch trailhead are here:

Babylon Jug-Handle

Babylon Window