The Fiery Furnace is a popular hike within Arches National Park, therefore it requires a permit in order to hike within the maze of slot canyons. At the time of publication of this cache, the only permits being issued are self guided permits and can be purchased at recreation.gov.
The Fiery Furnace is a collection of narrow sandstone canyons, fins and natural arches. It contains a variety of plant species and fragile ecological features such as biological soil crust (don't bust the crust!) and ephemeral pools that are vulnerable to visitor impact. Due to the environmental impacts of heavy visitation, the National Park System initiated a permit system in 1994 to limit access to the Fiery Furnace. To minimize impact on the plant communities, visitors must walk along sandy washes or on sandstone surfaces.
Your safety is your responsibility. Children under 5 are not permitted on this hike. Hikers will encounter uneven terrain, drop offs, narrow passages and must walk and climb on irregular and broken sandstone, along narrow ledges above drop offs and in loose sand. There are gaps which must be jumped and narrow places that you must squeeze into and pull yourself up and through. To better understand the difficulty of the hike, you can view a video about the Fiery Furnace on the parks website.
In order to obtain credit for this cache, you must:
1. Include a photo at the posted coordinates with your log
2. Email answers for the following:
-What type of misdemeanor is it if you are hiking the Fiery Furnace with no permit? What type(s) of punishment might there be if you are hiking with no permit?
If you cannot find the answers for the second question, you can email a picture with your permit to verify that you had a permit and had access to the location of this cache, thus preventing getting your log deleted.
**No backlogging of this cache. You must have visited after the date of publication**
Please do not include answers in your log. Logs with answers in them will be deleted. Logs without submitted answers will be deleted.
Our family has deemed this our favorite hike completed thus far. At the time of cache publication our kids are 7 and 10 and successfully completed this hike with minimal assistance. We packed a lunch for our hike and had that lunch at the posted coordinates. We hope you enjoy the location at the coordinates and the hike as much as we did!
Resources: Wikipedia
Virtual Rewards 3.0 - 2022-2023
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between March 1, 2022 and March 1, 2023. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 3.0 on the Geocaching Blog.