Utah
General Information
Arches National Park is one of the national parks located near Moab, Utah. Part of the Mighty 5, Arches NP draws in over 1.3 million visitors annually. The national park contains over 2,000 natural arches, many of which outdoor enthusiasts can recognize by name. Some key facts about the park are that the busy season includes the spring and summer months from March to October. The park recently introduced a timed entry system to combat the number of visitors. From April 1 to October 31, the park requires a $2.00 timed entry ticket on top of the $30.00 entrance fee. If you have an America The Beautiful Slots fill up quickly and are available between the hours of 7:00 am and 4:00 pm in one-hour time increments. Entry to the park outside of these hours does not require a timed entry ticket. Reservations for the timed entry tickets open 3 months prior. However, if you have a camping, backcountry, or Fiery Furnace permit, you do not have to have a timed entry ticket. There is one campsite in the park and that is the Devil's Garden Campground. Sites are able to be reserved from March 1 to October 31 for $25.00 a night. The campground includes trash facilities and restrooms without showers. Campsite reservations can be made up to six months in advance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Arches National Park dog friendly?
Dogs are not allowed on trails, but they are allowed at the campground, and on paved areas (pullouts, parking lots).
When is Arches National Park open?
The park is open 24 hours a day year-round. This does not apply to the entrance stations and visitor center. The entrance station is manned during the day and the visitor center hours vary seasonally.
Where is Arches National Park?
Arches NP is located just under four hours away from Salt Lake City Airport. If you're staying in Moab, it is just about ten minutes from the city to the visitor center. Don't let that fool you though, expect to spend thirty minutes driving from sight to sight inside the park.
My Experience
I went to Arches on a spontaneous road trip in early May 2023. While casually browsing national park information, I noticed that there was a campsite available for two nights inside of the park. Because I had been researching national parks and had recently missed out on an opportunity to travel to Big Bend National Park, I recognized this as an opportunity that I likely wouldn't be able to take again without some serious planning in advance. I booked the campsite and then figured everything else out later, and I'm super glad that I did. Devil's Garden Campground is an incredible campsite. Because Arches isn't based around a mountain or a canyon, the views from the campsite are quite incredible. While getting ready for bed one night, I heard some rustling outside and when I poked my head out, was greeted with the sight of a few deer roaming around the campground. The campground had trash facilities and an easily accessible restroom. The restroom facilities, however, did not have showers so keep that in mind when planning a trip. I recommend a disposable shower wipe such as the DUDE Shower wipes if you don't have access to shower facilities. As an AT&T user, I did have LTE and occasional 5G. Service was well enough at my site to be able to do nightly check-ins with my family and send messages as texts. Also, the campground is located close to the Devil's Garden trailhead. This parking lot fills up quickly so being able to walk from the campground or drive to the parking lot is a huge benefit if you plan on doing that trail.
As far as exploring the park goes, it is all about timing in my opinion. If you have the option, I would recommend including a typical workday (Monday - Friday) in your trip to see some of the most popular sites in the park such as Delicate Arch or the Windows. Or, if you're unable to during the week, understand that you need to plan on being in the park super early or super late. If you cannot be one of the first in the park, it may be more beneficial for you to skip some of the closer viewpoints for ones that are deeper in the park. Regardless of how you choose to approach it, don't spend your time just circling parking lots. There are many viewpoints and trails available and you can always try again later for those that you really want to do. A trail that I highly recommend is the Devil's Garden Trail. It's a 7.9-mile trail with less than 300 feet of elevation gain.
The trail has many short spurs to view arches and scenic spots. There is some debate on AllTrails regarding which direction to take this trail, I went clockwise which meant I ended up walking through the sandy riverbed instead of starting in it. I would recommend downloading the map for offline use as it is definitively easy to get sidetracked. I ended up having to miss out on some of them because I had to use AllTrails so much to find the correct path and it ended up draining my battery. For this particular trail, it wasn't so much that it required trail-finding knowledge as it was that it was evident there had been a lot of different paths taken. Overall, the start of the trail is definitely more crowded but when you make it to the loop, the crowd disappears.
Of the things I did not get to experience, Arches does have some off-road vehicle-friendly roads that have their own trails. I also did not get the chance to experience the Fiery Furnace. This is another area of the park that requires a permit and it is recommended to get one for the ranger-guided experience. All in all, I had an amazing experience staying at and exploring the park. My personal recommendation is that you only really need two full days in the park to get the whole experience, depending on what you want to do.
If you have time, be sure to visit the nearby Canyonlands National Park or the Dead Horse State Park. Moab is home to several adventure and outdoor companies, so if there's anything you would like to try, this is probably the place to do it. Home to the Moab Rope Swing and Moab Base Jump, there are plenty of thrills.
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