Arches National Park: Devil's Garden to Dark Angel and Rock Art

Much like we did yesterday, we woke up early this morning and grabbed breakfast as soon as it opened. Then, we headed to Arches National Park for our proposed hike into the Devil's Garden. It was forecast to be hot today and so we wanted to get an early start. We arrived at the trailhead, readied our packs, and then hit the trail, immediately passing between fins of sandstone. 

We entered into a more open area and found our first trail junction. 

We took the spur trails that led to the first two arches of our hike. The first was Tunnel Arch.

From Tunnel Arch, we retraced our steps a short distance. 

Then, we made our way over to Pine Tree Arch.

We enjoyed Pine Tree Arch and its relative solitude. Unlike Tunnel Arch, which you can only observe from a distance, you can go right under Pine Tree Arch.

Eventually, we made our way back to the main trail and continued hiking towards Landscape Arch.

The views as you approach Landscape Arch are really impressive. 

You can't walk under the arch due to its fragile nature. However, you don't need to be under this massive arch to appreciate its scale.

After our visit to Landscape Arch, we continued on following the "Primitive Trail." The trail becomes a bit rougher at this point, and in a few places its a bit difficult to follow. Still, it offered amazing views in all directions.

The trail traverses a narrow fin of rock, and at one point you catch the first view of Double O Arch from the fin.

We descended off of the sandstone fin and walked a sandy trail to the base of the arches.

We admired the arches for a bit and then decided to continue on to Dark Angel.

Dark Angel, a dark-colored sandstone pillar, isn't too far from Double O Arch. We made pretty short time of the hike out to it.

We had our photo taken there at the end of the trail. Then, I decided we would try to find the Dark Angel Petroglyphs. I have known there's rock art in the area for a while. A quick look at Google Maps made it pretty obvious where I would find it. Noelle and Sierra followed me off the trail to explore.

After a short time, we found a register. A sign a little further up confirmed we were in the right place.

Nearby was the first of many interesting rock art panels.

There was a nice shady, cave-like area where we took a break.

Then, we started to make our way back to the trail for the hike back to the trailhead. 

On the way back we figured we would stop at two of the arches we had skipped on the way in. Our first stop was Navajo Arch.

Next, we visited Partition Arch, which you can see from near Landscape Arch.

From Partition Arch, we made our way back past Landscape Arch 

and to the parking lot and car. We were pretty hot and tired at this point. Still, we felt we should see one more attraction before we left the park and so we went over to the Windows section and did the short hike to Double Arch 

before heading into town for ice cream.