This Secret Hike in Canyonlands National Park Leads to One of the Most Epic Arches in Utah

Tucked away in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park is an exciting hike to one of the most insanely epic arches in the entire state of Utah. Yes, I’ve done Delicate Arch. Yes, Druid Arch *might* even be better (but really, it’s not a competition—they’re both amazing!)

Canyonlands is the least visited National Park in Utah (trailing Zion, Arches, Bryce, and Capitol Reef), but the vast majority of its visitors stick to the Island in the Sky district. This area is just outside of Moab and close to Arches National Park.

The Needles district is much more remote—it’s an hour and a half south of Moab and kind of in the middle of nowhere. If you love epic rocks and insane trails, though, the Needles District, known for its skinny, jagged spires striped in red and white, is absolutely worth a visit. I would consider the Needles THE most hidden gem area in Utah’s national parks, bar none.

And one of the most iconic trails in the Needles is the Druid Arch hike. The trail takes you through incredible landscapes and exciting paths to finally deposit you right in front of Druid Arch, a truly spectacular sight.

Read on for everything you need to know about the Druid Arch hike.

Druid Arch Hike Stats

• Distance: 10 miles/16 kilometers
• Elevation Gain: 1446 feet
• Difficulty: Strenuous
• Time to Complete: We took about 6 hours to complete this trail, which included a long break at the arch and a few short breaks along the way.

The Trailhead

There are a lot of different trails that will lead you to Druid Arch, but the most direct and most accessible starts from the Elephant Hill Trailhead. This is about 10 minutes from the Visitor Center and is on a dirt road that any car can drive on in dry conditions. If it has just rained and is muddy, you might have some issues.

The Beginning of the Trail

The Druid Arch trail starts strong—very quickly you get to walk through some fantastic scenery.

The very first part of the trail is a short but steep (gaining about 200 feet) “staircase”/scramble up to the top of the mesa. Once you’re on top, you’re walking through a landscape that reminded me of Goblin Valley or the toadstool hoodoos in Utah—same kind of mushroom-shaped formations, just way bigger.

The best part is, you don’t just look at the formations from afar—you get to hike right into them. You’re weaving through these rocks, surrounded by fins, rounded pillars, Needles and tons of those funky mushroom-shaped rocks. The views are incredible in every direction.

After about a mile, you hit one of the best views of the entire hike—a wide, panoramic lookout over the classic Needles formations. This is where you really see what makes the Needles District so cool. The spires are tall and skinny, packed tightly together in big clusters, with red and white stripes running down their sides. It’s such a striking view.

A lot of the trail here is on slickrock, which makes for easy and solid hiking. It’s mostly flat rock underfoot, and the views are already really cool.

Descending To The Canyon Floor

This next section was one of my favorite parts of the whole trail. You’ll first squeeze through a narrow slot canyon between tall slabs of rock, and then enter a really cool corridor that feels part cave, part canyon.

The walls here have tons of texture—ridges, grooves, layers, and ledges that made the area both very rugged and very scenic.

From there, the trail drops steeply along a rocky trail as you work your way down to the valley floor. It’s a fun, adventurous section with some awesome scenery all around.

The Sandy Wash

After descending out of the narrow canyon, you land in a wide, sandy wash—this is about 2.5 miles from the trailhead and marks the point where the trail splits toward Chesler Park or Druid Arch.

If you’re heading to Druid, you’ll stay in the wash and follow it deeper into the valley. The landscape shifts a bit here—you’re no longer up in the slickrock, but instead walking between tall cliffs and sculpted formations towering above you.

It’s still incredibly scenic, just from a different vantage point. The rock shapes in this stretch are wild—some rocks that are more classic needles formations, but also rounded domes with bulbous caps, formations that look like turrets, or even onion domes like you’d see on a Russian cathedral.

The wash itself is a mix of deep sand and exposed rock. The colors also shift—here the rocks are more tan or lightly orange, streaked with dark black lines from manganese oxide. Earlier in the trail, you’re mostly walking on white sandstone, surrounded by taller, narrower formations with those classic red and white stripes that define the Needles.

Heading Out of the Wash

About a mile from the end of the hike, you leave the sandy wash behind and start heading uphill again, weaving through narrow canyons and rocky paths. The terrain gets steeper and more adventurous, with lots of sandstone ledges, uneven steps, and little scrambles up and over rock shelves.

This section puts you right back in the heart of the Needles, with giant striped formations towering on all sides.

Right at the end of the hike, before the final ascent, you’ll actually get your first glimps of Druid Arch from below and on the side—and it is massive! It’s also easy to miss, since you’re in a pretty intense part of the hike, and it almost looks more like an enormous pillar than an arch from this angle.

The final ascent to the viewpoint is pretty bonkers—it’s steep, scrambly, and involves climbing up and over big boulders through what feels like a semi-collapsed rockfall. It’s intense and rugged, and definitely gets your heart pumping.

Druid Arch

When you finally reach the top, Druid Arch is right there in front of you—and it’s absolutely epic. First of all, it’s huge—150 feet tall (for context, that’s three times the size of Delicate Arch).

But it’s not just the size that’s impressive, it’s also the shape. The arch has a distinctive, almost angular silhouette that immediately calls to mind the stones at Stonehenge (which is where it gets its name—the Druids were Celtic priests associated with ancient stone structures like Stonehenge).

There’s a good-sized area at the top where you can walk around and take in the views. Druid Arch sits at the very end of the canyon, and when you turn back around, the scene is incredible—striped red and white spires and domes rising up from the canyon walls in every direction.

The whole setting, from the being immersed in this beautiful canyon to the enormity of the scale of the rock formations around you, is awe-inspiring. Druid Arch is just *majestic*—I really didn’t want to leave.

Going Back

From the arch, you simply retrace your steps back the way you came—it’s very straightforward.

Alternatively, if you’ve still got energy, you can combine Druid Arch with part or all of the Chesler Park Loop, which is the most popular hike in the Needles. Since both trails share the first 2.5 miles, it’s a great way to explore two of the most scenic areas in the park without needing to start from scratch.

There is even a connector loop that will save another couple of miles instead of having to go back to where the trails diverged earlier. But, be aware that the Chestler Park hike is also a moderate to strenuous hike (if you do the full park), so you are committing to some more good energy output.

Chestler Park is beautiful, though, and even if you have to come back a different day, it’s certainly worth visiting.

Crowds on the Trail

We definitely saw other hikers on the trail (we probably passed about 20 groups total) but for the most part, we had the trail to ourselves. At one point, we didn’t see another person for over an hour, and we even had some alone time at the arch.

We really loved that sense of isolation and quiet, it made the trail feel even more special.

The Wrap Up

Druid Arch is easily one of the most epic trails I’ve done in any national park. Between the adventurous route, jaw-dropping scenery, and that incredible payoff at the end, this hike is absolutely worth the time and effort to do.