Are Dogs Allowed in Arches National Park?

Yes, but not on a single trail. Dogs are allowed in Arches National Park only on paved roads, in parking lots, in established picnic areas, and inside Devils Garden Campground — and they must be on a leash no longer than 6 feet at all times. Every hiking trail, every overlook, and every visitor center is off-limits to pets, and there is no carrier loophole — you can’t carry a dog onto a trail in a backpack or sling. The only animals exempt from these rules are service dogs, which under the ADA may go anywhere their handler goes. In practical terms, that means Arches is one of the least dog-accessible parks in the Mighty 5: there’s no pet-friendly hike at all inside the park boundary.

Where your dog can actually go

The dog-legal footprint at Arches is the developed front-country, not the scenery people come for. Leashed pets are allowed on the paved Arches Scenic Drive (you can stop at pullouts and walk the road shoulder), in the parking lots at each trailhead, in the designated picnic areas, and in Devils Garden Campground — the park’s only campground, near the end of the road. That’s it. You can drive the full scenic road with your dog in the car and take in Balanced Rock, the Windows, and the Fiery Furnace overlook from the road, but the moment you step onto the dirt toward an arch, the dog has to stay behind.

Where your dog can’t go — and why

No pets are permitted on any hiking trail, at any viewpoint or overlook reached by trail, in the backcountry, or inside the visitor center. The reasoning is specific to this landscape: the cryptobiotic soil crust that holds the desert together takes decades to form and is destroyed by paws as easily as boots, and the park’s wildlife and bighorn sheep are stressed by dogs even on a leash. Rangers do enforce it — a pet found on a trail is a citable violation. So the famous shots — Delicate Arch, Landscape Arch, Park Avenue — all require a hike, and all of them are closed to your dog.

The Moab workaround most visitors miss

Here’s what regular visitors do that first-timers don’t: they leave the dog out of Arches entirely and hike it on the surrounding BLM land instead. The public lands around Moab — including stretches along the Colorado River and many of the slickrock and canyon trails just outside the park — are dog-friendly and far more permissive than the national park. Pair a dog-friendly Moab base with a morning of BLM hiking, then visit Arches yourself during a kennel or pet-sitter window. You get the arches; the dog gets a real hike; nobody gets a ticket.

What most people get wrong: the parked-car gamble

The single biggest mistake is assuming you can leave the dog in the car at a trailhead and go hike. Moab summer highs routinely climb past 100°F, and a parked car becomes lethal within minutes — this is the desert, not a shaded mountain lot. Arches only permits an unattended pet in a paid Devils Garden campsite, and only if it’s secured, quiet, protected from the heat, and never left overnight; a dog in a car at the Delicate Arch trailhead meets none of those conditions and is both dangerous and citable. If you bring a dog to Arches, plan for someone to stay with it or for it to spend the hiking hours somewhere climate-controlled. Treat the dog’s day as its own itinerary, not an afterthought wedged into a hiking day.

Frequently asked questions

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