The Tower Arch trail is off the beaten path in Arches National Park in the Klondike Bluffs area of the park, and that’s one of the main reasons we enjoyed it so much. Even on a very busy Easter weekend, we saw few hikers on trail to this surprisingly large arch.
Arches is a pretty small park with a few select hikes along the main road that everyone does, but very few venture down the dirt road to the Klondike Bluffs. There was a warning sign at the beginning of the road that made us hesitate in our rented sedan, but we trudged on and it turned out to be a pretty nice dirt road (wouldn’t have been so nice if it was wet).
It’s a 1.7 mile hike with minimal overall elevation gain, but a few rolling hills to an arch in the middle of a valley filled with pinyon pines, sand, and vertical sand stone cliffs.
The first half mile of the hike is a quick climb to the top of a hill that leads to a sprawling view southeast across the park and to the La Sal Mountain range.
Once we got over the hill the trail dropped into a valley surrounded on all sides by sand stone cliffs. The trail meandered down hill until it bottomed out in a dry wash that probably fills with water in the monsoon season. At this point we started looking up at a small sand hill that the trail climbed and wrapped around to the north.
It was a brutal climb for 300 yards through sand, but worth it as the trail winds through a narrow valley with tall sandstone cliffs and pinyon pines.
Tower Arch appeared shortly after the sand hill. We walked around the arch for a while, checking out the complete structure and the views, then sat in it’s shade to eat a snack before the hike back.
