🥾 ActiveLong weekend · from Salt Lake City, UT
Moab Full Circuit: Arches Devil's Garden, Canyonlands Island in the Sky, and Dead Horse Point
The full three-day Moab circuit covers the iconic highlights and the deeper terrain of southeastern Utah's canyon country — the complete Devils Garden trail system in Arches National Park, the Fiery Furnace labyrinth (ranger-led), Island in the Sky's Mesa Arch and Upheaval Dome, and the Colorado River horseshoe at Dead Horse Point — across three days in the most photographed landscape in the American West. The drive from Salt Lake City is 3.5 hours each way, and spending three nights maximizes time in the parks and avoids the worst of the midday heat.
Day 1 — Moab & Arches National ParkDay 2 — Arches Deep Terrain & Fiery FurnaceDay 3 — Canyonlands & Dead Horse Point
Day 1 — Moab & Arches National Park, UT
Day 1 — Moab & Arches National Park, UT
🚗 3 hr 30 min driving📍 7 stops
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Morning
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Drive
Salt Lake City, UT → Arches National Park, Moab
3 hr 30 min8:00 AM → 11:30 AM
Arches National Park — Windows Section & Balanced Rock
★ 4.8The Windows Section of Arches National Park, accessible from the park road 9 miles from the visitor center, contains four major arches within a 1-mile loop: Turret Arch (105 ft tall), North Window (51 ft wide, 48 ft tall), South Window (105 ft span), and Double Arch, whose two openings share a common abutment and span 148 feet — the widest arch in the park. Balanced Rock, passed on the main road, is a 3,577-ton sandstone capstone balanced on a narrowing pedestal 128 feet above the road — the product of differential erosion of the harder Entrada sandstone cap and the softer Dewey Bridge mudstone beneath.
11:30 AM📍 See location
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Lunch
Delicate Arch Viewpoint
The distant viewpoint for Delicate Arch, accessible from the main road without the 3-mile hike to the base, provides a telephoto perspective on the arch's scale: 65 feet tall, freestanding, its frame filled by the La Sal Mountains on clear days. For visitors saving the full Delicate Arch hike for the morning light of Day 2, the viewpoint serves as an orientation to the arch's location and geometry.
12:30 PM📍 See location
🍽️ Lunch1:30 PM
Moab Diner
A Moab institution serving no-nonsense American diner food — green chile cheeseburgers, house pie, breakfast burritos, and milkshakes — at canyon-country prices.
3 options · tap to switch
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Afternoon
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Delicate Arch Trail — Afternoon Hike
The 3-mile round-trip trail from the Wolfe Ranch trailhead climbs 480 feet over slickrock to Delicate Arch — 65 feet tall, freestanding, the world's most photographed natural stone arch and the image on the Utah license plate. The afternoon light turns the Entrada sandstone from orange to deep red; the trail rounds a stone fin in its final approach to reveal the arch suddenly framing the La Sal Mountains, an effect that is consistently reported as the single most dramatic landscape moment in Utah.
2:30 PM📍 See location
Park Avenue Trail — Arches
★ 4.9The Park Avenue trail runs 1 mile one way through a corridor of sandstone fins that resembles a city street between skyscraper-scale rock walls — the trail's name is apt and the visual effect striking. The fins are sections of Entrada sandstone that eroded along vertical joints, leaving parallel walls separated by narrow corridors; Park Avenue is one of the most accessible demonstrations of the geological process that eventually produces the arches.
3:30 PM📍 See location
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Evening
🍽️ Dinner5:00 PM
Desert Bistro — Moab
Moab's finest dinner restaurant in a Victorian house on 100 West Street: Colorado lamb, canyon-country game, Utah fish, and vegetables from desert-irrigated farms, with a wine list emphasizing the Grand Valley AVA Colorado canyon wines.
3 options · tap to switch
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Moab Springs Ranch
A riverside property on the Colorado River north of Moab with cottonwood-shaded casitas and direct river access — one of the more distinctive lodging settings in Utah canyon country.
Day 2 — Arches National Park — Deep Terrain
Day 2 — Arches National Park — Deep Terrain
🚗 20 min driving📍 5 stops
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Morning
🚗
Drive
Moab, UT → Arches National Park — Devils Garden Trailhead
20 min8:00 AM → 8:20 AM
Devils Garden Trail — Landscape Arch
★ 4.9The Devils Garden trailhead at the far end of the Arches park road is the starting point for the most extensive arch-exploration trail in the park: the 7.9-mile round-trip trail to Dark Angel, the isolated sandstone monolith at the garden's end, passes Landscape Arch — the longest natural arch in North America at 306 feet span, its ribbon of stone now so thin (6 feet at its narrowest) that a 60-foot slab fell from the underside in 1991 — as well as Navajo Arch, Partition Arch, Private Arch, and the double-humped rock fin called Dark Angel. The full Devils Garden circuit requires 4-5 hours and involves some scrambling on slickrock fins.
8:20 AM📍 See location
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Lunch
Fiery Furnace — Ranger-Led Hike
★ 4.9The Fiery Furnace is a labyrinth of narrow sandstone canyons and fins in the center of Arches National Park, accessible only by ranger-led tour (advance reservation required at Recreation.gov) or with a permit for experienced hikers. The 2-3 hour ranger tour winds through slots as narrow as 18 inches, over fin ridges, and past arches that are not visible from any trail or road — including Surprise Arch, which most park visitors never see. The Fiery Furnace was named for the iron-oxide coloration of its walls, which glow orange-red in afternoon light and give the labyrinth an otherworldly character.
9:20 AM📍 See location
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Afternoon
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Sand Dune Arch & Broken Arch Loop
Sand Dune Arch, reached by a 300-yard walk through a slot canyon filled with soft red sand, is the most child-friendly arch in Arches — the sand dune beneath it is a natural sandbox under a stone roof. Broken Arch, a 10-minute walk farther, is technically not broken but has an unusual saddle shape that distinguishes it from the park's other arches. The loop connecting the two arches through open grassland adds up to about 2 miles and provides a gentler afternoon counterpoint to the Devils Garden morning.
12:00 PM📍 See location
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Evening
🍽️ Dinner5:00 PM
Pasta Jay's — Moab
A Moab stalwart for pasta, pizza, and Italian-American comfort food in a lively dining room that's been feeding canyon country visitors since the 1990s; the lasagna and the house minestrone are the standards.
3 options · tap to switch
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Moab Springs Ranch — Night 2
Second night at the Colorado River cottonwood property, the natural base for the Canyonlands day to follow.
Day 3 — Canyonlands & Dead Horse Point, UT
Day 3 — Canyonlands & Dead Horse Point, UT
🚗 4 hr 5 min driving📍 7 stops
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Morning
🚗
Drive
Moab, UT → Canyonlands National Park — Island in the Sky
35 min8:00 AM → 8:35 AM
Mesa Arch — Canyonlands Island in the Sky
★ 4.9A 0.5-mile round-trip walk leads to Mesa Arch at the canyon rim — the sandstone arch whose underside frames Buck Canyon and the La Sal Mountains in the most photographed sunrise composition in the American West. The arch sits at the absolute edge of the Island in the Sky mesa, 2,000 feet above the canyon floor; morning light catches the underside of the stone in a reflected golden glow that lasts approximately 20 minutes after sunrise. Even mid-morning, the arch frames a view of extraordinary scale and drama.
8:35 AM📍 See location
Grand View Point — Island in the Sky
The 1.8-mile round-trip Grand View Point trail follows the southern mesa rim through piñon-juniper to the promontory where the entire Canyonlands basin opens: the junction of the Green and Colorado rivers 2,000 feet below, the Needles district to the south, the Maze to the southwest, the Henry Mountains and Abajo Mountains on the distant horizons. At 6,080 feet, the Island in the Sky mesa is the highest viewpoint in Canyonlands and the Grand View Point is its culminating overlook.
9:35 AM📍 See location
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Lunch
Upheaval Dome — Meteorite Impact Crater
★ 4.7A 1.8-mile round-trip trail from the Upheaval Dome parking area reaches two overlooks above a 3-mile-wide circular depression whose geological origin has been debated for over a century: the current scientific consensus favors a meteorite impact site where the impactor punched through the overlying sedimentary layers and exposed the white-and-purple banded Paradox Formation in the crater walls — rock entirely unlike the surrounding red Navajo sandstone. The first overlook provides the full crater view; the second adds depth perspective on the exposed stratigraphy.
10:35 AM📍 See location
Island in the Sky Visitor Center — Lunch Overlook
★ 4.7The visitor center at the Island in the Sky entrance has a shaded picnic area and a small store; the canyon views from the overlook west of the visitor center include the White Rim Road's hairpin descent and the Colorado River canyon far below.
11:35 AM📍 See location
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Afternoon
Dead Horse Point State Park
★ 4.8The 14-mile drive from the Island in the Sky entrance along the mesa backbone reaches Dead Horse Point State Park, where the Colorado River makes a 2,000-foot-deep horseshoe turn 2,000 feet below the overlook. The point takes its name from the mustangs that 19th-century cowboys corralled on the peninsula and abandoned; the animals could see the river but couldn't reach it. The view inspired the final oil refinery sequence of Thelma and Louise and appears in dozens of films; the state park's overlooks include the main horseshoe viewpoint and several secondary canyon-rim perspectives along the park road.
12:35 PM📍 See location
Colorado Riverway Scenic Drive — Utah 128
★ 4.8The return to Moab via Utah 128 follows the Colorado River upstream for 44 miles through Canyon Rims country: red sandstone walls, cottonwood bottomlands, and the Castle Valley with the Fischer Towers rising 900 feet from the valley floor. The afternoon river-road drive provides the quietest transition from Canyonlands' high-mesa drama back to Moab.
1:35 PM📍 See location
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Evening
🍽️ Dinner5:00 PM
Moab Brewery — Departure Dinner
Colorado Plateau craft beers and wood-fired pizza before the 3.5-hour return drive to Salt Lake City: Derrick Dunkel Dark Ale, Dead Horse Amber, Rocket Bike Lager alongside burgers and pub fare.
3 options · tap to switch
🚗
Drive
Moab, UT → Salt Lake City, UT
3 hr 30 min6:00 PM → 9:30 PM
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