You’ve got to see the DEVIL'S GARDEN in Arches National Park, Utah

Join us this week as we rewind to an adventure from 2023. A beautiful hike at the Devil's Garden in Arches National Park, Utah. It's our second day at Arches National Park. Yesterday we visited the Fiery Furnace. If you haven't seen that video, be sure to check it out. But today we're going to do the Devil's Garden. Yes. Which sounds like a very evil place but I'm sure it'll be very cool. It's supposed to be similar to the Fiery Furnace. However, the difference is you don't require a permit to go into the Devil's Garden. And the nice thing is it's like right by the campground where we're camped. So we can just walk to it. It's about 11 a.m but it's mid-November. So like off-season and I would say the parking lot is three quarters full. This is a popular moderate difficulty hike that lets you get up close to lots of really interesting arches and rock formations. Note that one section, the Primitive Trail, is not recommended during wet or icy conditions. Thankfully we had beautiful weather. Oh this is awesome. This is for like visually impaired people. They can get a sense of where they're going to be walking. Are you going to run and I'll walk? I'm so tempted to but I'm not going to leave you. It's chilly in here in the shade at 11 o'clock. Good thing there's sun here now and warm up. I'm going to try and find a beer today. That might be really hard because the tree branches sometimes look like antlers and you might think you see one and then all of a sudden you realize it's just a tree. Oh this way is Tunnel Arch and Pine Tree Arch. Let's do it. That's pretty. Yeah. He's in the shade there, Nat. Again we forgot the binoculars. Oh whoops. Like that's Tunnel Arch. Tunnel Arch. Is there something to talk about? No info. Tunnel Arch. All right next arch. Check. Oh you're gonna be hoping it like this. I gotta take off my flannel. I told you I want to work out today. Speed walking the trail. Pine Tree Arch. Look at that. Wow it's hard to like get the sense of scale but that thing is huge. Even Mel's getting warm now. So far compared to Fiery Furnace this is a much easier hike. I would say it's very flat like almost wheelchair accessible. It's a well-groomed trail. You're not climbing over rocks. Now on the other side of this trail as the loop continues that'll take us to what's called the Primitive Trail and that is a lot more technically challenging. More like Fiery Furnace where you're scrambling and climbing over rocks. Are we checking that out? Absolutely. We're doing the whole thing baby. All right. Right now it's really hard to tell if it's an arch. Yeah I don't think I would have even noticed but it's a good thing they have the sign. You definitely got to go to the end of the trail here to get the best view of this arch. So this says Primitive Trail. Warning scrambling and climbing on uneven surfaces and near cliff edges. Not recommended when wet or icy. Sounds like our kind of adventure honey. Are we up for it? Of course. Okay let's do it. Well this is starting to remind me a little bit of Fiery Furnace. I see footprints over here. No it's just there's so much loose sand on this. Good thing they've got a handhold here. Holy crap. This is a huge cliff. All right watch your step up here. Massive massive cliff. So what's your top tip for this trail? I kind of want to bring a little broom to dust off some of the rocks before I step on them because it's super slippery with the loose sand. Oh no this says point two. Oh point two. And point three. Oh well that's not so bad. We can do it. Wasn't sure if we wanted to do an extra three miles but point three will do. I think if you're going to do any of the trails here do the Devil's Garden. It's a long trail but you see so many arches in it. We're only three maybe four kilometers in and we've already seen one two three four or five arches already. Partition Arch is this way and Navajo Arch is that way. Yes I was up on there kind of looking this way so maybe we're going right behind it. Yeah look it is that one that I saw and we're like right behind it now. Oh boy. Wow look at that view. Whoa. Isn't that cool? That is just like framed so beautifully. I know. Oh there's tons of people over up on that ridge now. Navajo Arch. We're here. It looks like a little cave. It's not a window it's just. This is cool. Comes into a little opening right here. I wonder if the trailer would fit under the arch. This would this would make a really nice camping spot. Yeah you just park right in here you know a little fire pit. That tree behind you is really neat too. Almost to the exact contour of the arch. Remember to bring lots of water on this hike even in the winter. It's sunny. It's dry. You're gonna get thirsty. I think they recommend about three liters per person. Good bar. Up we go. These arrows are more noticeable than the fiery furnace arrows. Kind of cool walking up on this ridge. Drone shot without a drone. It really lets you see the fins like all of the columns of rock. All the layers and layers. Fins going all the way down that way. Yeah this primitive trail is definitely worth doing. Double O Arch. 0.4 miles. So this is an in and back I guess. This bit yeah. This kind of looks like it goes off a cliff. Yeah. Oh wait the trail. Oh there are here. Do not walk straight. We are apparently not there yet. Oh it's right there. It was right behind us. Oh be really careful here. Yeah see. It's really sandy. Here comes the runner. Not sure if this is the right way but it's cool. So we'll go. Dead end? Yeah. Huh. All right. I want to I want to look in here first. Squeeze your way through the pool. Oh this is a tight squeeze. Nope. Oh it's a cool cave though. Very echoey. All right let's go back. It doesn't look like an angel or anything. Am I missing something? Mel's disappointed. Maybe from the other side? I don't know. Never see it. Don't tell anyone else but you could probably skip this one. All right when you're here at the dark angel cutoff make sure that you go this way forward to continue on the primitive trail. Otherwise you'll end up going back the way you came. Or if you happen to come the other way. Just know that there's two different ways. This is where it like splits off a bit. Caution. Are we up for it? I guess that means yes. I wonder how many people have misread that. Because we saw a lot of people going back the way that we were coming. But maybe they started and went the other way. We're going clockwise around the trail. There is an option to go counterclockwise. So we thought this was going to be about a 12 kilometer hike in total. Now we've done some quick calculations and it's probably going to be more like 16, 17. If you want to do all the stuff it's a bit longer. But we'll see for sure at the end. Cool window arch kind of up there. Private arch. Well there it is. Private arch was busier than expected. Not so crowded. You got real cool hoodoos behind you. A bit of a little chasm here. All right, be careful. I would do it slowly like I did. I don't like... No, you can't do it like this. Oh, nice. Perfect. If you go fast you got momentum. Up onto the rocks again. Kind of feel like this is it here. Yeah, this looks right. Well that's a neat view straight ahead. We've split routes. I'm up top. Mel's down there. We're going to see hopefully they join again. Not one of us will be backtracking and I hope it's not me. Yeah, it's so like orangey red. And it's nice to be out of the sun actually. It's getting hot. I can't imagine this place in like July or August. We got a little off trail. Thankfully we have all trails here to help us. I think we have to hug that rock right there. The really big one sticking up. Like where it told us to turn left, I think it meant hard left. You didn't see the arrow? Yeah, right over here. I somehow walked right past that. So this arrow says hard left. But I looked here and I'm like what this is like. This looks super scuffed. This is steep. But look at the trees. Yeah, they're there to support you to step on. They're there to mangle you once you slide into it. I'm nervous. You're doing a good job so far. Again, the little broom idea that I have would be perfect to dust off all the sand. And then you'd have way better grip. I think your shoes are holding good. These are fantastic trail shoes. Beauty. All right, well convinced me to come down this way too. It's actually not quite as bad as I thought it would be. My shoes are sticking nicely. There you go. Easy peasy. There, see? Not so bad. And now we go back. Up. Up the rock. You ready? Yep. Whoa. I don't think we're in the right spot. This is like a big dead end. All right, back we go. It looks like we're not the only people to do this. A lot of footprints, yeah. Which the heck way then? Because there's a cliff over there. There's a massive cliff over here. All right, we're backtracking a little bit again. We don't seem to be on the trail according to all trails. So we're going to go back to the last arrow and see where we went wrong. All right, I see what we did. This arrow should be more of a u-turn sign. And we need to go up that way. Yes, so many people have gone down that dead end. But we're getting back on track now, I think. Are we? Like, it's still not clear. This looks like a cliff too. But I think we need to go down here. Look, you can see the rock is worn away. This is where the rock is all worn away by people. I mean, it looks like a cliff, but you can see all the scuffs. See, right down this edge here. It's a bit sketchy. I don't really like this part. How are you doing? You good? Nice crabbing. There's a lot of like loose dirt. Like it's... Oh, it's so slippery. It's really slippery. I imagine like if it just rained. Oh, this would be treacherous. Well, that was fun. You got a nice view behind you too. How you doing? Oh yeah, that's where we came from. Kind of feel like our truck going up the coca-cola. Slowly running out of steam. The tides have turned. I'm out of breath and Mel's fine. I swear, like previous years, it's always been the opposite. It has been. I need to power up. Pump, pump, pump it up. Well, this is a very quiet, peaceful section of the hike. Oh, we made it back to the main trail. We're back on track. We started at 11am, but we're done. What's your kilometers reading now? Almost 13. Okay, quite a hike. Just saw a family with a stroller. That's pretty impressive. I think it was a four-wheel drive stroller. It wasn't a running stroller either. You can see the marks here. Well, we're coming back out again. We're going to have to read the kilometers. Yes. Oh. 14? Yeah. Right down the middle between what we guessed. If we're going to go on the primitive trail and see everything and do everything, about 14 kilometers. And approximately four and a half hours, give or take. And that's walking at a decent pace. Oh, we did it. Now we've still got to hike back to the campground. Hike. Oh, I'm at 21,623 steps. Okay, let me look. Please stand by. I'm at 22,470. Oh, there you go. Oh, it's a raven. Hello. Hi. He's like, no. Wait, I'm on the wrong side. The sun is like really hard to see. Which is awesome. And now we're going to see our fifth and our sixth. Make sure you don't miss the next video by liking, subscribing, and turning on notifications. Oh, and don't forget to check out our website and sign up for our weekly email blast. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you in the next one.