Devil’s Garden Hike

Posted bySara HesselsweetPosted inUncategorizedTags:, , ,

First week of November, 2021

With steep swirling sandstone cliffs and fins and slickrock ledges, an often treacherous climate with wild daily temperature swings, spooky slot canyon systems with flash-flooding risks, tarantulas, scorpions, and rattlesnakes, hiking in the Southwest is no joke.  Our lack of familiarity with the climate and terrain (we have done most of our hiking in CT, VT, NH, NY, and ME) made us cautious in what we initially were willing to bite off — we know how our family performs in New England conditions, but we’ve introduced lots of new variables here.  

There are several ways you can hike the trails at Devil’s Garden Trailhead.  In total, the trails form an approximately 8 mile loop, with some spurs you can venture down to view additional rock formations.  A couple miles of that loop are the Primitive Trail, which is rated as difficult; the Park Service says “the obstacles in this segment include difficult route finding, steep slopes, narrow drop-offs, and rock scrambling. Hiking the Primitive Trail requires crossing a pool that may contain water.”  Without the Primitive Trail segment, we completed the hike as an out-and-back, with the addition of interesting spurs to see the numerous arches and fins that densely populate this area of the park.  The kids had hoped to see the Double O arch formations, but to get to that far point of the out-and-back (leading towards Primitive Trail) we’d have had to traverse a steep, narrow sandstone fin which made the parents increasingly uncomfortable, so we turned back prior to reaching Double O.

At the trailhead. Usually the kids hike with packs too, but we’ve been embracing a lighter, faster hiking style, so for this hike (temps were mild in the late afternoon of a November day) the parents carried 4L of water, basic first aid, no snacks. We all had hats, sunscreen, and eye protection and wore trail runners. Mom carried hiking poles but didn’t end up using them — this was more of a rock-scramble type of hike on slick sloping faces; otherwise elevation change was minimal.
Smiles in the front, snow-capped mountains in the back!
The famous Landscape Arch — longest in the world at 306 feet (only 11 feet wide at its center). Chunks have broken off from underneath, so the trail no longer goes underneath.
Down one of the spur trails to see one of the numerous lesser arches.
Heading up toward one of the more formidable sandstone fins. Pictures of the scarier parts of this hike don’t exist because we were crawling on all fours and vigilantly monitoring our kids position relative to the steep slick edges.
Here’s where we turned around, just shy of Double O arch. Pictures don’t do it justice — this was a lot more vertiginous than it looks!
Scooting down the final fin on our way back to the trailhead. Note that incredible view of the snow-capped La Sal Mountains!

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