Devil's Garden Loop Trail

Hike Stats

Location: Arches National Park

Full Loop with side trips: 7.8 miles, 1131 ft elevation gain

RT to Landscape Arch: 1.9 miles, 259 ft elevation gain

Date Hiked: October 2020

My first thoughts when arriving in Arches to do this hike were, “Holy traffic!” I knew Arches was a popular national park and that it would be crowded year-round, but even with all my preparation I was still shocked by the sheer volume of cars circling the parking lot in a vain attempt to find a spot. I had arrived in the park to enjoy the sunrise at Double Arch and the Windows, but while I was enjoying the sunrise, the Devil’s Garden parking lot was quickly reaching capacity. Rookie mistake. While snapping photos of the iconic Turret Arch, I got to talking to a fellow solo traveler and we agreed to hike the Devil’s Garden loop together (this happens all the time, it's not as sketchy as it sounds!). He luckily managed to snag a spot immediately while I was forced out by a ranger closing the lot. Three-quarters of a mile up the road, I finally found a place to park and walked down to the trailhead. It was getting warm, but at least the heat from the sun wasn’t on full blast yet. Finally meeting up with my new friend Shu, we merged into the throngs of other visitors on one of the busiest trails in the park. The beginning section of the trail is fairly flat and paved, making for a lovely stroll to the first stop on the loop: the iconic Landscape Arch.

Landscape Arch is the longest arch in the world, stretching a massive 306 feet and measuring a mere 11 feet thick at the center. Fun fact: a 60 foot chunk of rock came crashing down in 1991, which is why visitors are no longer allowed under the arch. That’s fine by me; death by giant falling rock is not exactly the way I want to go. The walk up to the arch was fantastic as I got to admire it from various distances and perspectives.

The trail began to get more strenuous as I moved past Landscape Arch, requiring some minor scrambling up rock fins in certain places. If you like that type of hiking, then this trail will be like a playground for you. If not, you may want to turn around at this point. No shame in that, but even more rewards come to those who continue on. After climbing the sandstone rock fin, we reached a split that led two more arches: Navajo and Partition. I don’t know why, but I found the Navajo Arch to be kinda cute. Not as large or immediately impressive as some of the other arches in the park, the smaller opening gave it its own charm. Shu and I got a picture in front of it trying to make a human arch because I’m a sucker for goofy vacation photos. He was actually making fun of me because I much prefer funny pictures or action shots (even if they are still kind of posed) over the generic posed photos that saturate my Instagram feed.

Further way down the spur, we came to the Partition Arch. I could actually see this one from below, not far from Landscape Arch. It was entertaining watching the ant-sized hikers climb in and out of the arch to get photos; now we were the ants. This one was pretty cool because in addition to the large opening, there is a smaller window to the right.

Now for my favorite part of this hike: Double O Arch! The trail got even more fun on the way there. The scenery became even more spectacular when I climbed up a huge rock fin as the views opened up to even more rock formations below. Walking along the spine of that fin was definitely a highlight. I’m not saying that I felt like a totally badass adventuress in that moment, but I’m not not saying it, you know? After crossing the spine, you get to a great overlook of the distant Black Arch, the name of which I don’t really understand because the arch is as brown as the rest of the rocks in the park. It’s like naming a white stallion “Black Beauty.” But maybe there’s a backstory I’m missing here. See if you can spot the arch:

We then came up to the super cool Double O Arch, named for the two arches stacked on top of each other. For the classic view, we had to scramble up and through the lower arch, which was a bit of a challenge as I'm 5’2”. Once I finally made it through, I scrambled up a steep rock slope Lara Croft-style for an amazing view of both arches plus the surrounding landscape. From this vantage point, the hikers climbing through the lower hole looked positively miniscule. I did take a previously-denounced posed picture at the base of the arch and I can barely be seen!

After taking a while to relax and enjoy the view with some fellow hikers, we continued on to the aptly-named “Primitive Trail." The trail is often marked by cairns* and requires occasional route finding as the trail is not always easy to spot. There were several times when I wandered around for a bit trying to find the way before finally spotting a cairn. The crowds definitely decreased after passing Landscape Arch, but there was barely a soul on the Primitive Trail. While not the most difficult trail I’ve done, there were definitely some parts that got my heart rate up!

After joining back up with the main trail headed back towards the parking lot, I was intending to go see the Pine Tree and Tunnel Arch, but the sun’s heat was in full force and knowing that I had to walk the road back to my car, I made the decision to save them for next time. I had a cold bottle of Gatorade with my name on it.

Overall Thoughts

I really enjoyed this trail. It has a fantastic collection of arches and, while the beginning of the trail is crowded, it does offer a way to escape the crowds that the park is known for. Arches NP sometimes made me feel like I was on a drive-through photo safari, but here it was easy to just enjoy being in such a unique setting. Even if you don’t do the whole loop, I think hitting the trail and seeing at least some of the arches and formations is 100% worth it.

Trail Tips

• Go early in the morning for the best photos as well as parking availability. The light hits Landscape Arch in the morning, but washes it out in the afternoon. This also allows you to avoid hiking in the heat of the day as there is no shade on this hike.

• The Dark Angel formation is not an arch but a spire. So if you’re only in this for the arches, save yourself the extra 0.8 mile RT detour. I believe you can also see this formation from a distance if you climb up the rock slope by Double O Arch.

• The Primitive Trail is where the trail gets even more strenuous and requires good attention as you will have to do some route finding as you follow cairns. There are some social trails which can be misleading. Turning around at Double O Arch and skipping the Primitive Trail makes your hike 4.2 miles.

• If you have extra energy after hiking to Landscape Arch but don’t feel ready to do the full loop, I’d recommend taking the side trip to Tunnel Arch and Pine Tree Arch, which will add about 0.5 miles to your hike. The spur trail leading to these arches is near the trailhead and is marked with a sign.

*cairns are rock piles that mark a trail when the landscape does not allow for a typical path to be formed on the ground, i.e. trails that go over desert sand, rocks, etc. These are not the same as those awful eye sores that grown ass adults still think are cool to build in and around rivers and creeks. In addition to marring an already beautiful landscape, these non-trail marker rock stacks can actually destroy the habitats of some of our most fragile species. In sum, follow the cairns, don’t build them.

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