Arches National Park Hiking Route Summary

There are 11 hiking trails in Arches National Park, the most famous of which is the 11.6-kilometer Devil's Garden Trail. It can be split into several parts, so some people say that this national park has 16 trails - it depends on how you count. . In this article, several trails in the Devil's Garden are calculated together:

Not far from the entrance of the park, there is a one-way, short road leading to the bottom of Rock Canyon.

• Location: On the main road of the park, not far from the park entrance.

• Difficulty: Moderate.

• Length: 1 mile/1.6 kilometers

There is a small plank road near the balancing stone, which can be circled around the balancing stone. The plank road is very gentle.

• Location: Balanced Rock Parking Lot

• Difficulty: Very easy

• Length: 0.3 mile/0.5 kilometers

These two planks are in the same area and share a parking lot.

Windows Trail

• Location: South of the Double Arch parking lot, the circular trail passes through the North window, South window, and Turret Arch in sequence.

• Difficulty: Very easy

• Length: 1 mile/1.6 kilometers

Double Arch

• Location: North of Double Arch parking lot, a straight path leading to Double Arch

• Difficulty: Very easy

• Length: 0.5 mile/0.8 kilometers

Leading to the park's most famous attraction, Delicate Arch. Trail 5 leads directly to Delicate Arch, but the journey is longer; while Trail 6 only leads to a nearby viewing point, allowing you to view Delicate Arch from a distance, but the path is shorter.

Delicate Arch

• Location: Delicate Arch Parking Lot

• Difficulty: Difficult, with an altitude change of 146 meters and no shade throughout. Each person is required to bring at least 1 liter of water

• Length: 3 miles/4.8 kilometers

Delicate Arch Viewpoint

• Location: Continue along the path of Delicate Arch to reach another parking lot

• Difficulty: Very easy

• Length: 100 yards/91 meters to Lower Viewpoint; 0.5 mile/0.8 kilometers to Upper Viewpoint

The third part of this article will tell this story in detail.

These three plank roads are also in the same area, not far from each other.

Sand Dune Arch

• Difficulty: Very easy, suitable for children

• Length: 0.3 mile/0.5 kilometers

Broken Arch

• Difficulty: Very easy

• Length: 1.3 mile/2.1 kilometers

   

Skyline Arch

• Difficulty: Very easy

• Length: 0.4 mile/0.6 kilometers

   

The Devil's Garden is located in the deepest part of the park and is also the most beautiful and famous plank road here.

• Location: Devil’s Garden Parking Lot

• Difficulty: Hard, the longest boardwalk in the park

• Length: 7.2 miles/11.6 kilometers

But you don’t have to walk the entire distance, you can just walk any combination of the following sections.

Landscape Arch

• Difficulty: Moderate

• Length: 1.6 mile/2.6 kilometers

   

Double O Arch

• Difficulty: Hard

• Length: 4.2 miles/6.8 kilometers

   

Primitive trail from Double O Arch to Landscape Arch

• Difficulty: Difficult, very steep road

• Length: 2.2 mile/3.5 kilometers

Tower Arch is not on the main road of the park, and you need to drive on the unpaved road to reach it:

• Difficulty: Between medium and hard

• Length: 3.4 mile/5.5 kilometers

 

The biggest challenge when hiking in Arches National Park is actually the weather. As you can see from the picture below, the highest temperatures here in summer are above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and there is no shade in the park. Even standing still in the direct sunlight is a torture, let alone hiking.

 

 

Therefore, you must get up early when hiking here! !

 

 

Parking the car in the Delicate Arch parking lot, the moment I stepped out of the car door, I felt the heat wave hitting me. There are also tips at the entrance of the hiking trail. You need to prepare enough water for this part of the hike to avoid dehydration.

It is said that most of the arches in Arches Park require hiking, but the hiking trails are relatively short, and Delicate Arch is one of several rare long hikes.

Standing at the starting point of the plank road, looking at the small hills in front of me, I suddenly felt that the road was long and long.

Standing at the foot of the mountain, the small hills also look majestic.

I always thought that not many people would come here to hike in this kind of temperature. To my surprise, there were quite a few people here.

Halfway through the climb, I was about to suffer from heat stroke.

After climbing over this hill, the surrounding landscape turned into an almost desert landscape.

There are still many plants surviving tenaciously in the desert.

After a turn, we finally encountered rare shade.

After a lot of hard work, we finally reached the front of the exquisite arch. There are not many tourists here, and everyone is very orderly and takes turns taking pictures.

You can also see many Mani piles along the way. It seems that this kind of stone art is used all over the world.

Manidui means piled stones in Tibetan. It can often be seen when traveling in Sichuan, Tibet, Yunnan and other places. In English this is called cairn, or simply trail marker rocks.

Mani piles usually appear along hiking trails to point the way for hikers. On the way, we saw a mani pile pointing in the wrong direction, so we kicked off the mani pile in the wrong direction and built a new one on the correct path.

Back to the familiar hillside.

After climbing over the hill, we saw the parking lot in the distance - the hike was finally coming to an end.

When we got back to the car, we didn't leave in a hurry, but continued deeper and drove to the viewing point of Delicate Arch. There is no need to hike here, and the Delicate Arch can be seen from a distance next to the parking lot, so it has become the first choice for most tourists.

Note, I’m not exaggerating about “far away”——

After returning from the Delicate Arch hike, we got into the car and immediately turned the air conditioner to maximum to recover from the high temperature hike.