Day 8
Arches: Devils Garden and Delicate Arch
Morning
The full Devils Garden, with the primitive trail
The park's longest hike (12.7 km, about 3 hr 15): Landscape Arch with its 88-metre span, the longest natural arch in the world, so thin that a slab broke off in 1991 in front of visitors; then Partition, Navajo and Double O Arch, and the Dark Angel monolith. The way back on the primitive trail crosses sandstone fins that have to be negotiated with your hands.
Afternoon
Fiery Furnace, otherwise Sand Dune Arch and Broken Arch
The Fiery Furnace labyrinth can only be visited with a ranger or an exploration permit (booking compulsory, very few places). Failing that, Sand Dune Arch, hidden between two sandstone fins with its natural sandpit, and the loop to Broken Arch across the meadow.
Evening
Delicate Arch at sunset
5.2 km there and back over bare slickrock, then a narrow ledge, and the arch appears all at once, alone at the edge of its natural bowl: 16 metres high, the emblem of Utah, engraved on the number plates. At sundown it turns incandescent. Take a headlamp for the walk back in the dark.
