Arches Backcountry XIII: Salt Valley to Devil’s Garden

March 1, 2026

It was already warm outside at sunup when I began this hike from Salt Valley up into the Devil’s Garden, a sharp difference from the previous weekend’s snowy trip to Arches National Park. This would be similar to a 2013 hike some friends and I made into Devil’s Garden except this time instead of the cliffs above Salt Valley merely being an obstacle to overcome, they were my destination. As I crossed the seemingly barren valley there were all kinds of signs of human activity. I spotted a few pieces of what I assume are environmental monitoring equipment left by the National Park Service. They must have stuff like this all over the park because I’ve run across quite a lot of it. There was also the usual scattering of older detritus–rusty cans, bottles, and metal tools–as well as truly ancient remains like lithic flakes and stone tools.

La Sal Mountains before sunrise

View across Salt Valley toward Devil’s Garden

NPS monitoring equipment

Old rusty cans

Broken glass bottle bottom, possibly from 1933

Can with “Purity” barely visible on the side

Broken shovel

Shed deer antler

View toward Klondike Bluffs from the knoll

Tumbleweed city

Scraper

Just the tip

I spotted what looked like an old sign a couple hundred yards off to one side of my route and decided I should get a closer look. At the base was a pile of rocks next to a section marker that somebody had placed a rusty old can over. The sign was interesting. There was no indication of what it used to say, and it was tied with wire onto the post, but there was also a carriage bolt through the post with no corresponding hole through the sign. Two additional pieces of wire tied to the post below the sign suggest there was an additional sign at one point. It was all very curious. I finally reached the base of the cliffs at the edge of the valley, which had some promising patina on them but were void of any interesting writings. I encountered a raven that occasionally made a single loud clicking sound as I approached before it flew off. There was a decent sized arch, with an opening tall enough for me to walk through.

Sign and rock pile in the distance

Sign and rock pile

1932 section marker

Wire ties and an old bolt

Small translucent point

Below the cliffs

Barely-visible arch

Clicking raven

Unnatural-looking (but definitely natural) stack of rocks

Natural arch

View through the arch

There was a flat, open stretch between there and the next couple sets of cliff bands and I followed deer trails much of the way. I saw another section marker with a huge cairn built around it. The upper cliff layers had a few inscriptions, the oldest dating to 1914.

Following a deer trail

Section corner

Patina with a few inscriptions

Hard-to-read name, 1914, Rio Arriva, New Mexico

Fred Arellano, Montrose, Colorado

La Sals

Upper cliff band

I topped out in what I guess would be considered the Devil’s Garden proper. I decided to add an extra mile to the hike and headed over to see the petroglyphs and Denis Julien inscription since I was so close.

January 31, 1924, Moises Martinez, Mora, New Mexico

Domingo 1937

Denis Julien, June 9, 1844

B.S.

Crazy petroglyphs

Arch in a fin

I returned to the upper cliff bands above Salt Valley to explore a different section, passing below Jigsaw Arch. Then I got into an area that’s completely loaded with remarkable petroglyphs. This place isn’t really a secret but most people who hike the Devil’s Garden trail are unaware of the rock art. I spent quite a bit of time taking it all in and photographing all the panels. I’ve known there was rock art in this location for a very long time but didn’t realize how much or how good it was! I recognized several of the petroglyphs from photos I’d seen online–I knew they were somewhere in the park but not exactly where. If only I’d known (which would have taken only the slightest bit of effort on my part) I would have made this hike much sooner.

Dropping back down into the cliffs

The truck below in Salt Valley

Jigsaw Arch

Large and fascinating petroglyph panel

Lower panel

Large and high horned human figures

Little sheep with vertical incised stripes

Ghostly face

Pronghorn straight on

Mohawk man

Joined figures

Incredible line of deer

Faintly-pecked horned figure

Pictographs

I thought I’d seen all the rock art in this area so I headed to the outside of the fins and sat down on a boulder with a nice view over Salt Valley and ate lunch. While there I saw the only two people I would see the entire hike. First a man walked by and we chatted for a minute about the rock art, then a short while later a woman came through and asked, “My husband didn’t pass through here, did he?” I pointed her in his direction and she continued that way while I finished up my lunch and moved along. I found one more petroglyph panel that I wasn’t expecting as I began to drop down the first cliff band on the way back to Salt Valley.

Dead pinyon pine and a small arch

Lines and figures

Incised figure

I zig-zagged down through the ledges but there weren’t as many promising surfaces and I didn’t see any more inscriptions or rock art. I reached the valley floor and tried to walk as straight a line as possible back to the truck without being able to see it over a small rise, just following an arrow on my GPS. It was a pretty featureless traverse but at the base of a small hill I found a rock that had been used to grind grain. I got back to the truck 8.5 hours after starting the hike and had covered just under 10 miles. I took a lot of photos but didn’t want to overload this post with too many, so check out the full photo gallery for the rest.

Descending through the cliffs