Elephant Hill Trailhead to Druid Arch, Chesler Park, Joint Trail, and Devil's Pocket Loop
The Needles District in Canyonlands National Park is a backpacker's wonderland. If you're looking to avoid the crowds in Arches National Park and the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park, The Needles District offers one of the most unique and intimate ways to explore the red rock desert of southeastern Utah.
Contents
Adventure Stats
Hiked in October 2022
Location: Canyonlands, the Needles District
Distance: 16.72mi
Elevation: +2236ft/-2243ft
Nights: 1
Group Size: 2
Rating: 9/10 (see my closing thoughts for more detail)
The Route
The route I discuss in this blog post is for experienced backpackers looking for routes that go the extra mile. For those looking for shorter backpacking trips, the Chesler Park Loop or Devil's Pocket Loop are both awesome alternatives that each explore a portion of the route that I Iay out below.
Our route started at the Elephant Hill Trailhead went clockwise through Elephant Canyon, Chesler Park, the Joint Trail, Devil's Pocket, Devil's Kitchen, then returned to the Elephant Hill Trailhead. We took a side quest to Druid Arch as well. We camped for one night as Devil's Pocket Campsite 1 (DP1).
You can find a link to my route here.
Please be especially mindful of staying on trail in Canyonlands. You'll hear this a lot while you're at the park, but the desert landscape is covered with a thin veneer of biological crust that provide nutrients for other desert plants to thrive. When you step off trail, you risk damaging the crust, which can take decades to recover.
What to Pack for a 1 Night Backpacking Trip in Canyonlands National Park
Check out my comprehensive ultralight backpacking packing guide as a starting point.
Here are key variations from the packing guide that you should be mindful of:
Water: We followed the recommended guideline of 3 liters of water per person per day for a total of 12 liters packed. At the end of our trip, we had only consumed 7 liters of water, but we were glad to have brought extra for our first time hiking in the desert. Remember that heat in the desert kills. That being said, water is extremely heavy to pack in. Here are some tips that may help you reduce how much water you need to pack:
Hike in spring or fall when the weather is cooler
Hike early in the morning or in the evening when the weather is cooler
Check to see if there was any rainfall the day or two before your trip. If so, you may be able to filter water from the potholes along the trail or at one of the pools along the Druid Arch trail, pictured below.
Sunscreen: Self-explanatory.
Tents (optional): You can get away without a tent here if the weather is favorable and go cowboy camping. We encountered practically no bugs in the area.
Wag Bags: Leave your trowels at home! In Canyonlands, you're not allowed to bury your waste. Instead, you need to pack out all your waste. However, you can avoid packing out your waste on this route if you use the vault toilets that are located at the intersections between the trail and the 4-wheel-drive road.
Day Pack (optional): I brought a daypack with me to carry snacks and water on the side quest to Druid Arch.
Water-Minimal Food: Backpacking through the desert, where you pack in all your water, puts you in a rare situation where it actually makes sense not to pack dehydrated food. If you can avoid packing dehydrated food that requires boiling water, you can leave your fuel and stove at home.
Trekking poles (optional): We brought trekking poles, but due to the narrowness of the canyons, respect for the biological crust, and a desire to use our hands for balance across some of the scrambles, we ended up tucking away our poles for a majority of the hike.
Where to Stay the Night Before Backpacking in the Needles District
The Needles District of Canyonlands is a bit more remote than its Island in the Sky District. Depending on your preferences, you may choose to stay at Moab, the town at the heart of southeast Utah's national parks. However, Moab is roughly 1.5 hours away from the Needles District.
If you have an RV, are equipped to camp, or are interested in a unique stay, I'd recommend checking out The Needles Outpost, a campground situated right outside the park boundaries. There are plenty of RV and tent campsites as well as opportunities to stay in a canvas teepee, like we did.
For those interested in staying in the teepee as well, keep in mind that the interior does not include any furniture. You will need to pack sleeping pads, bags, and any other bedding you need to be comfortable. If you're already planning to go backpacking, this shouldn't be a problem.
Trail Report
Day 1 - Elephant Hill Trailhead to Devil's Pocket
Distance: 11.2mi
Elevation: +1655ft/-1411ft
After packing up from the Needles Outpost in the morning, we headed straight to the Elephant Hill Trailhead. Because we reserved our backpacking permit in advance from the national park website, they emailed our permit to us a week ahead of our trip. We printed this out ahead of time and avoided stopping in at the visitor center in the morning.
The 2WD road to the Elephant Hill Trailhead was unpaved but nothing too technical. Most cars should be able to make it down this road.
The route between Elephant Hill Trailhead and the Druid Arch Junction was relatively manageable terrain. There are cairns placed all along the trail. The route down Elephant Canyon gets a little bit sandy, and it was a blessing that I wore my gaiters to keep the sand out of my shoes.
At the Druid Arch Junction, we temporarily dropped off our backpacks and packed a single daypack with snacks and water.
The first half of the trail to Druid Arch was very manageable hike through a canyon, but the second half was a bit more technical. The trail had several fun scrambles up steep rock faces as well as scrambles around pools of water. If the climb up feels scary and uncomfortable, the climb down will feel much worse.
Along the trail, there were several large pools of water that were good candidates for filtering.
We knew we were close to Druid Arch when we got to a ladder bolted into a rock face.
After climbing the ladder, there were a couple more cairns to follow up to a great vantage point of Druid Arch. This was a great place to stop for a midday snack!
Druid Arch ended up being my favorite arch in Southern Utah since I could get a spectacular view of it without running into huge crowds (I'm looking at you, Delicate Arch).
After returning from Druid Arch, we picked up our backpacks and continued heading west toward Chesler Park. This stretch of the trail took us over some slickrock scrambles.
Chesler Park was beautiful in a way that cameras don't capture very well. It was a large flat plain where I was surrounded by distant views of needle rock formations.
Continuing further west from Chesler Park, we entered the Joint Trail. The Joint Trail connects Chesler Park to the 4WD road through a series of long, narrow slot canyons. This is not for anyone claustrophobic, and certainly not for anyone if storm clouds are looming overhead. Never enter slot canyons if there's a possibility of rain as flash floods can quickly flood the canyons.
For those brave enough to enter the slot canyon, it is incredible! The Joint Trail had one of the narrowest trails I've ever traversed. Right before I exited the slot canyon, the canyon was so narrow that I needed to remove one of my Nalgene water bottles from my backpack side pocket in order to squeeze through.
The Joint Trail popped us out onto the 4WD road, that we followed for a short distance until we reached a trail sign pointing us toward Devil's Kitchen.
The trek north took us through a section of the map labeled S. O. B. Hill, which wasn't nearly as bad as the map made it sound.
Not much further past S. O. B. Hill, we found our private campsite at DP1 and settled down for the night.
Day 2 - Devil's Pocket to Elephant Hill Trailhead
Distance: 5.6mi
Elevation: +583ft/-793ft
We woke up and packed up camp before sunrise to take advantage of lower temperatures early in the morning.
We hiked north to Devil's Kitchen where we had our breakfast of Pop Tarts and instant coffee. Devil's Kitchen is situated along the 4WD road and has a clean vault toilet for those looking to do their morning business.
Not long after our breakfast, we had linked up again with the start of the loop and the rest of the trail flew by as we retraced our steps back to the trailhead.
Closing Thoughts
I loved this route! This route crossed a variety of visually stunning and technically challenging terrain. It was breathtaking to stop every once in a while and let the feeling of being in the heart of Canyonlands really sink in.
