Arches?

HDT 2022 Day 1, April 1, Friday
Start S1 mile -4.4 Salt Valley Rd
End S1 mile 12 Willow Spring Wash
Miles walked: 16.4

Soon I enter the north entrance to Arches National Park, just a sign and no entrance station. This marks the official start of the Hayduke Trail.

My route turns off onto a jeep road, and after a few miles follows a BLM boundary fence, and I see footprints of other hikers making the same cross-country route, dodging low cacti.

Then the route drops into a narrow wash, with pools of water remaining in sandstone basins, called tinajas.

After following the wash for a while, scrambling past pools of water, I stop early in mid-afternoon, on the last sliver of BLM land until past the park at Moab. To camp on Park land, I need a backcountry permit, which I do not have, but the Bureau of Land Management has no camping restrictions. (Correction: there is another section of BLM I overlooked, further along my route.)

I do not see any arches today, but enjoy plenty of wonderfully carved rock formations.