Devil’s Garden Hike

Devil’s Garden is a magical place that at anytime looks like a dinosaur might fly over/walk by at any second. Once you walk into this trail you feel miles from any roads or civilization. The first arch on the trail you come to is Landscape arch. It’s crowded with lots of people here but the arch is amazing. When you go past Landscape arch the hiking turns much more rugged and only people willing to scramble on rocks, walk on high fins, and slide down steep rocks really keep going. There are several arches along this trail so it’s definitely worth your time doing if you want to see some beautiful arches.

Matt and I walked to the end of the trail at Dark Angel and then decided to take the difficult trail back to the parking lot, Primitive Trail. Well let me just say the description was not joking around when it said Primitive Trail was difficult. I’m surprised the National Park just lets you go off on a trail like this with only what felt like a slight warning that this trail involved heights, slippery rocks (especially when wet which it was for us b/c it rained off and on all day), and difficult scrambles. I guess that’s a good thing that they allow you to really go places that normally would seem to hard to conquer.

As we were hiking I was thinking wow, this trail is challenging, I’m so athletic to be able to do this! Then I saw a pregnant woman hiking it who asked us to take her photo. Then I saw about 3 families with a baby strapped to their back as they hiked this difficult trail. At that point after seeing the pregnant hiker and the baby on board hikers I thought, well maybe I’m not so special to be able to do this hike after all! And just maybe it’s not that challenging?? Well, let’s just say, I was humbled by the end of the day and I realize I’m not yet a professional hiker/rock scrambler.

We made it back to camp that night and I was ready for some food and to take a load off my tired feet! I think we ended up hiking about 9 miles this day overall so I was tired for sure. Overall I’d say Devil’s Garden was a great place to see. We even saw a bunny and a deer at the end of the day! 

If you've done this trail and think aww she thought that trail was hard, you're an impressive hiker and may be part mountain goat.