The Fiery Furnace – 7 Tips for a Successful Hike in Utah’s Arches National Park

Updated June 2022

The national parks in Utah offer so many different and exciting ways to experience their majestic otherworldly beauty. You can hike, drive, photograph, mountain bike, camp, ATV, motorbike or Jeep through these magnificent and amazing places. My favorite way to discover a place is to hike, so… P1010580

After hiking some amazing but traditional trails in Canyonlands, Dead Horse Point, and Capitol Reef, Piu (my Frenchman) and I were ready for something a bit more adventurous and off the beaten path. I found an incredibly intriguing hike called the Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park that sounded just right. Here’s the description from the website:

The Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park is a natural labyrinth of narrow passages between towering sandstone. Navigating its complex passages requires physical agility and careful observation. During this demanding hike, you will walk and climb on irregular and broken sandstone, along narrow ledges above drop-offs, and in loose sand. There are gaps you must jump across and there are places that you must squeeze into and pull yourself up and through. To enter the Fiery Furnace, you must accompany a Ranger-guided hike or obtain a hiking permit at the visitor center.

After a challenging but fabulous couple of hours exploring, scuttling, climbing, bouldering and scampering my way through the Furnace, here are my 7 helpful insider tips for enjoying this special place.

1. Read the description about this unusual hike and watch the video on YouTube so you have a fairly good idea of what you’re getting into. It’s a bit hairy and maybe not for everyone. It’s not a long trail – less than 2 miles (3km) but it gets technical and you need to take your time.

2. If you want to do this hike, it’s by “permit only” – meaning, you can’t just show up. You can choose to join a ranger-led tour for $12 per person (ranger tours only available May through the end of September) or purchase a permit for $6 per person and hike it on your own any time of the year. But….there’s a catch…actually, there are three.

* There are only 75 permits available for purchase for each day.
* You can only buy the permit in person at the Visitors Center at Arches. Not online. 😐 And everyone in your group must watch the safety video together before they’ll issue the dang permit.
* You must purchase the permit within 7 days of when you want to use it. We stopped at the Visitor Center before camping at Dead Horse State Park (make sure you check the hours for the Visitor Center, because they stop selling the permits 30 minutes before closing) and bought the permit to hike the following week. There’s a hefty fine for entering the Furnace without a permit so make sure you have yours displayed on your backpack and use the sticker on your car windshield at the trailhead.

3. Use the app AllTrails and pay for the premium subscription (AllTrails Pro for $29.99 per year) so you can download this trail (and a zillion others all over the world!) Then you can use the saved trail map when you’re in the thick of it and have no WiFi. We relied heavily on this! It’s one of my favorite apps for travel — I’ve used it in Portugal, Ireland, France and more. I highly recommend it! 🏆

4. Wear good shoes. Hiking shoes, or trail shoes – something grippy and real. You’re gonna be scrambling up and down boulders and scree (that’s loose rock) and climbing up walls and such. This is no time for flip flops or Chucks. You’ll thank me later.

5. Channel your inner Spider-Man…

You’ll need to do a bit of wall climbing between some narrow passageways and some fancy footwork is required. (But nothing you can’t handle – I’m pretty uncoordinated and did just fine…with some encouragement!)

6. Don’t forget your camera 📷 – this place is amazing and gloriously gorgeous!

7. And bring lots of water, especially if you go during the summer (which will give you a better understanding of why it’s called the Fiery Furnace – I’m told it’s hot AF). And a Clif Bar or energy bar of some kind is always a good idea in case you get hungry!