Cassidy Arch

Cassidy Arch is a natural opening high on the north wall of Grand Wash. The hike brings you onto the broad sandstone span, with the wash and Capitol Reef's red-rock country spread below. I'd make time for it if you want a proper hike; this isn't a quick pullout on the Scenic Drive. The Cassidy Arch Trail is 1.7 miles each way with 670 feet of climbing and is rated strenuous.

Drive the Grand Wash spur road from the Scenic Drive to the shared trailhead, then follow the Cassidy Arch Trail. The route climbs steeply before crossing open slickrock. The path can be harder to pick out near the top, so watch for the rock cairns. The route is exposed, and the park has little or no shade on many trails; there's no water at the trailhead, so bring what you'll need and start early or later in hot weather.

Grand Wash is a narrow canyon where flash floods can arrive with little warning. Stay out of the wash and off this route when storms threaten.

The arch is a destination you can stand on, an unusual way to look back across the canyon rather than at the rock from below. It's hard to show the span from right on top; from the approach, a person on the arch gives the photo scale with the canyon behind.

The arch sits where fractures intersected in the sandstone. Those weaknesses likely let part of the canyon wall collapse. Look at the surrounding cliffs for shallow pockets where rain, ice and wind have worn softer, more weakly cemented grains away.

The name refers to Butch Cassidy, the turn-of-the-century outlaw who is thought to have hidden in Grand Wash occasionally. That's local history, not proof that he used this particular arch.

Grand Wash cuts through the Waterpocket Fold, a vast bend in Capitol Reef's sedimentary layers. An old buried fault pushed the rock beds upward, leaving cliffs and tilted bands that make the arch's canyon setting especially clear from above.