Overview
About Private Arch
Why stop
- A secluded detour with a strong arch-framed view.
Heads up
- Reaching it means scrambling along the Primitive Trail.
- The arch is modest beside Arches’ headline formations.
Map
Where it is
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Arches Tour Guide
Your drive to Private Arch, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Arches National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Arches audio tourRecorded for this place
Devils Garden and Landscape Arch“Devils Garden is coming up, with a walk through tall sandstone fins to Landscape Arch. It's my pick for a shorter outing: one point nine miles round trip, allowing an hour to an hour and a half with stops.”
Plays as you drive up to Private Arch in the Parkwolf Arches Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- A Lizard on Two Legs
- Bringing Bighorns Back
- Devils Garden Campground and Tapestry Arch
- The Moth Inside the Yucca
- 35 audio storiesacross Arches’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Bighorn Sheep, Pronghorn, Raven, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 28 trails, 41 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“I can’t believe how helpful this app is and how interesting the information is for each highlight along the Arches Scenic Drive! This is the first park I’ve used it in.”
Guide
More about Private Arch
A quiet add-on, not a quick stopPrivate Arch is a sandstone arch on a spur off the Devils Garden Primitive Trail, beyond…
Private Arch is a sandstone arch on a spur off the Devils Garden Primitive Trail, beyond Landscape Arch. It’s a tucked-away reward if you’re already hiking toward Double O; if you’re choosing just a few stops in Arches, the headline arches make a bigger impression.
Know what you’re signing up forThe Private Arch turnoff is 0.
The Private Arch turnoff is 0.42 miles beyond the Double O/Primitive Trail junction, and the spur itself adds 0.52 miles round trip. The Primitive Trail is the most difficult part of Devils Garden, with difficult route finding, steep slopes, narrow drop-offs, and scrambling. Skip this if exposure or scrambling is a problem. Don’t walk or climb on the arch; avoid wet or icy rock and midday summer heat, and carry water and salty snacks.
The Devils Garden trailhead lot has 160 spaces and is often busy much of the day. Toilets are open year-round and drinking water is available there spring through fall; those facilities are at the trailhead, not at the arch.
Look through the openingThe opening frames a sunlit sandstone wall, slickrock, junipers, and low shrubs.
The opening frames a sunlit sandstone wall, slickrock, junipers, and low shrubs. The arch makes a strong frame for a photo; continue a little farther and look back for a different angle. It’s a quiet pause on a demanding loop, though the arch itself is modest beside Delicate Arch or Landscape Arch.
How arches formUnderground salt movement creates parallel fractures in the sandstone.
Underground salt movement creates parallel fractures in the sandstone. Rainwater widens them into fins, and continued erosion cuts openings through those fins to make arches.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Arches
14 sightingsBighorn SheepMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
10 sightingsPronghornMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
610 sightingsRavenMost seen around 9 AMSighting map
188 sightingsMule DeerMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
51 sightingsPrairie DogMost seen around 8 AMSighting map
15 sightingsCoyoteMost seen around 6 AMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Arches. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
