Tower Arch Trail

Tower Arch Trail is a 2.6-mile out-and-back from the east Tower Arch Trailhead to a broad sandstone span tucked behind the Klondike Bluffs. The National Park Service allows 2 to 3 hours, calls it strenuous, and lists about 290 feet of elevation change. The mileage is modest, but the steep start and soft sand near the arch make it a bigger effort than a level walk. I’d save it for a day when you want a quieter corner of Arches and don’t mind a rough drive to get there.

The standard trailhead is at the end of Klondike Bluffs Road, reached over about 8 miles of unpaved roads. There’s auto parking and a vault toilet at the trailhead. Salt Valley Road can become impassable when wet, so check the park’s road conditions before driving out. The route has little to no shade and no cell service. The park advises carrying at least 2 liters of water per person.

The trail begins with its hardest climb: roughly 200 feet in the first quarter mile, up a steep rocky wall to the ridge. Cairns mark the way where the slickrock makes the tread hard to see, so keep checking for them instead of following the most obvious-looking rock. From the ridge, the path descends through a valley of red fins, towers and spires. You can look back toward Salt Valley and across to the distant formations of Devils Garden, with the Klondike Bluffs rising to the north.

Around 0.9 mile in, the descent bottoms out at a wash. Then comes a steep sandy hill and a winding path among sandstone fins. That loose sand is the part many hikers find hardest, especially on the climb back. Parallel Arch is off to the right after a short slickrock drop; it’s easy to walk past on the way out and easier to spot on the return. Near Tower Arch, a signed route heads west toward the separate four-wheel-drive access. For the standard hike, stay with the east approach and turn back at Tower Arch. The original rock wall is waiting for one last uphill on your way back to the car.

Tower Arch is a 92-foot-wide opening with a rounded tower behind it to the north. Walk up to the span and look back through it: on a clear spring day, the snowcapped La Sal Mountains can show through the opening to the east. A photo that includes both the arch and the tower gives a better sense of the formation than a tight shot of the opening alone.

About halfway along the route, look south for the Marching Men, four narrow sandstone spires standing together on an eroded fin. They’re a good reminder that the arch isn’t the only payoff on the walk. The trail takes you past smaller fins and pillars before it reaches the larger opening.

Arches National Park’s geological story began about 65 million years ago, when this region held a dry seabed. Later movement fractured the buried rock; uplift, water and freeze-thaw weathering exposed and wore it down. Walls of sandstone erode into narrow fins, and openings form within them over time. The route gives you the sequence in miniature: fins along the valley, spires on the skyline, then a full arch at the end.