Devils Garden

Start: Devils Garden parking area

Distance: Variable; up to 0.7 mile

Approximate hiking time: Variable, up to 1 hour

Difficulty: Easy

Trail surface: Boot-worn trails and slickrock routes

Trailhead access: 2WD

Best seasons: Apr through early June; Sept through Oct

Canine compatibility: Leashed dogs permitted

Topo maps: Seep Flat USGS quad; Trails Illustrated Canyons of the Escalante

Finding The Trailhead

Hole-in-the-Rock Road provides access to this hike, which is a generally good-graded dirt road that branches southeast of UT 12, 5.8 miles east of Escalante Interagency Visitor Center, and 23.8 miles southwest of the UT 12/Burr Trail Road junction in Boulder. Follow this good wide road southeast, passing a large destination and mileage sign a short distance from the highway. After driving 10.7 miles, pass the signed eastbound road to Harris Wash. Continue south on Hole-in-the-Rock Road another 1.6 miles (12.3 miles from UT 12) to the signed spur road to Devils Garden, and turn right. Follow this gravel road for 0.25 miles to the spacious parking area adjacent to the picnic site.

Hike Information

Devils Garden briefly introduces the kind of slickrock walking and route-finding over a trail-less landscape typical of most backcountry routes in the Escalante region. Since the landscape features, such as pour-offs and cliffs, are in miniature here, obstacles are minor.

Devils Garden has a four-site picnic area with toilets, tables, fire pits and elevated grills. No water is available. Bring firewood or charcoal since collecting firewood is prohibited at the site. Keep your dogs leashed at all times in Devils Garden. Although children will enjoy wandering with their parents here, remind your children to avoid trampling the coarse yet fragile desert vegetation.

Miniature domes, tiny narrows carved by rivulets of infrequent runoff, and diminutive pour-offs are among the features you’ll see during your wanderings. At the picnic site, spot a small arch that spans a gully following the upper left-hand trail. The lower trail skirts the base of Devils Garden’s erosion formations, passing delicate Mano Arch and an array of red-and-beige-toned sandstone hoodoos and mushroom rocks that rise from the pinyon- and juniper-studded bench. Other hiker-made trails crisscross the area.

Follow a short loop through the garden, covering 0.7 miles. The upper trail fades on the slickrock past the arch mentioned above., Continue over the sandstone slopes to a point above the wash’s bend, where it cuts through a 15-foot-wide slot. Loop back to the picnic site via the bench above the wash, skirting the dramatic hoodoos along the garden’s western margin. Midway back to the picnic site, find a good trail to follow to your car.