Devils Garden Loop – Arches National Park

As a first introduction to Moab and its many surrounding National/State Parks we headed straight to Arches National Park. We decided to run around Devil’s Garden, an area in the most northerly part of the park, but stopped at The Windows en route in order to see some of the areas world-famous arches.

Driving into Arches National Park

Crazy rock formations in Arches National Park – aka, The Garden of Eden

I spy an arch in the Windows area of Arches National Park

The North Window, Arches National Park – With a small Dabous for scale (if you can spot her!!)

The South Window in Arches National Park – with a Cronk for scale

The Double Arch in the Windows Section of Arches National Park

The rock bridges of Double Arch in Arches National Park

After checking out The Window Section we continued on to Devil’s Garden to find even more crazy sandstone arches, monoliths and “walls”, which make it a very different experience for trail running compared to BC. All of which, given the vast desert emptiness that surrounds it, appear to spring up out of the ground out of nowhere given the flat and

We followed the 11km primitive trail loop to cover as much ground as it was the longest option and we wanted to see as much as we could. Starting from the parking lot, we headed clockwise, going past Landscape, Navajo and Wall arch before reaching the far corner of the garden at Dark Angel. We then headed back via the private arch to round out the loop and finish back near the car park. For the most part, the trail is pretty well marked with numerous cairns, which make it relatively easy to follow. There were also a couple of fun little scrambling sections which involved navigating down steep slabs and along narrow ledges.