Here is the account of my recent outing into Fiery Furnace:
When driving along the 18 mile paved road that traverses Arches National Park, my eye often catches a feature in the landscape that is known as The Fiery Furnace. I've stopped & taken photos from the viewpoint, but never delved INTO the region, as it requires a day-use permit from a ranger at the visitor center. Today I am off from work & am going to take advantage of the low rate of visitors that Arches experiences in January & February. A young ranger informs me that a hiking permit for Fiery Furnace is mine if I pay a $6 fee & watch a short video. The video is fairly painless, and she comes in when it is over to reinforce some of the bullet points (mostly: "Mind the cryptobiotic soil. Don't poop out there, please").
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| One of the guiding arrows |
I tie the permit to my little runner's backpack & hit the road for Fiery Furnace (a 14 mile drive from the park's visitor center). While it may be a more wise decision to slowly hike through The Furnace on one's first visit, I'm craving getting my legs up to speed for the thrill that is running in the wild desert. There's no exact trail with blazes & cairns to follow, but rather minuscule light-brown plaques with white directional arrows to point me in a suggested route. The ranger I'd got my permit from encouraged me to "get off path" to some extent. . . ". . . That's what The Furnace is all about - open exploration." She said the "Dead End" signs are mostly off-shoot trails that will lead to an arch.
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| Skull Arch |
The first run through takes me over an hour & nearly 4 miles of jogging, trotting, and turning around when I don't seen an arrow in a while. The features are gawk-worthy - many mushroom-esque stone spires which turn from beige to a "fiery" light orange & rusty red at the top. I'm not able to move in a way to keep my BPM in a consistent cardio-zone, but am realizing how much fun it is getting dizzy & lost in this maze. I run into another party eventually, and the folks are caught in a dilemma where an arrow seems to point towards a path which turns into a dark, steep crevasse. "We've been here nearly 35 minutes." I take a try at descending in this spot & terminate my attempt quickly. . . there's no way it can be a "suggested route," it's far too dangerous of a drop to pursue without ropes. When I trace back to the last arrow & veer to the right instead of left towards the crevasse, I see the next intended arrow high on a stone wall pointing to guide the explorer in another direction. I inform the disoriented party about the arrow and am off running again, to get lost a few more times before completing the counter-clockwise loop & reaching the parking lot. The weather is optimal for a day out in the desert & I want to milk my hiking permit, so after I stop at my minivan to charge the phone & eat a snack I give the route another go, curious to test how my time & mileage changes now that I'm a bit more familiar with where the arrows are at. It takes me just a little over 20 minutes with a total distance of about 1.5 miles. I still stumble into a few wrong turns I have to reverse from, and also stop my timer to take a look down a "Dead End" path where I will find "Skull Arch" (one of the guys in the group I'd run into earlier tipped me off to it).
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| First Go |
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| Take Two |
The Fiery Furnace is quite the playground for an Arches visitor that is looking for more of a challenge & spontaneous exploration rather than just a rigidly marked trail to follow. I enjoyed running through it, although it's probably best as a slower hike or canyoneering expedition with the right gear.
