Trip Report: Tower Arch trail
I am back from Moab, and we did the Tower Arch trail on Sunday. Since I had started this thread, I thought I might as well post a report, for the record.
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The 7.2 mile Salt Valley Road is passable by any passenger car from the main Park road out to the Tower Arch trailhead (for the 3.4 mile hike), including the 1.1 mile spur to the trailhead itself. It's dusty and washboard all the way, but you don't need 4WD.
The first 1.7 mile stretch of the offroad trail is by far the hardest part. The first hill is rocky, steep and uneven. I was solo, so I had to walk it and spend some time contemplating the best lines. Happily, I made it up without incident in 4LO. My wife said that at one point my drivers front, then rear, tires got air. Sadly, we were so focused on making it up in one piece that we forgot to take pictures. Bummer.
Once you are at the top of the hill, there is a long section of ledges to work your way down on the other side. This took me quite a while as I'd have to get out, walk down to pick my line, move forward and repeat. In a few spots I stacked some rocks to work my way down on.
After reaching the bottom of the hill the rock crawling is really over, and the trail is primarily deep, soft sand. We drove the 1.4 mile spur to the 4WD trailhead for Tower Arch (0.3 mile hike). After the hike, we drove back out the 1.4 mile spur and turned right down the 9.0 mile offroad trail.
The Park office advises anyone against using this section of trail. If you do go, they recommend north-to-south, which is what we did. It's 90% deep, rutted sand. At several points my skids were smoothing down the sand as we went. All of the turns are tight and heavily banked. It's hard to avoid pinstripes, and at one point the trail was so uneven that I worried about the truck tipping over against the berm on the low side. There are some mild ledges and rocks between all the sand, but nothing that I had to get out of the truck for.
After a good long while we arrived at the Eye of the Whale Arch trailhead (0.25 mile hike). Beyond here it's only another mile or two out to the intersection with Willow Flats Road. I was told by the Park that the 7.0 miles of Willow Flats Road out to 191 is easily passable, but it was late in the day so we took the Park road back out to 191.
Overall the 4Runner made it without incident, and I was impressed by the truck. I picked up a few scrapes and dings in the front skid plate, and the screen is bent out of shape. Otherwise, it appears to be no worse for wear.
If you've done Hells Revenge, you won't find anything in Arches intimidating, except maybe that first stretch up to Tower.
