At the Arches National Park visitor center a little sign at the Passport stamp cancellation station informed us that Arches was a site along the Old Spanish Trail and that we could ask a ranger for a special stamp.

Naturally, we got the attention of the nearest park ranger and asked for the stamp. Lo and behold! She removed it from a drawer behind the desk and we happily added another stamp to our books.

The Old Spanish Trail is a pack mule trail that extended approximately 1200 miles long and connected Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Los Angeles, California. In an annual trek, woven Mexican products were transported to Los Angeles, where they were traded for horses and mules.

We journeyed along the Trail between Moab and La Sal Junction; a distance of only about 22 miles, or 1.83% of the trip. Furthermore, we weren’t carrying any bartered goods of benefit to the people of Santa Fe.

For more information on the Old Spanish Trail, visit the Old Spanish Trail Association.

Update: Passing through Monticello we potentially blew our chance to get a second Old Spanish NHT stamp at the Bureau of Land Management Monticello Field Office. Of course, we did pass through town on a Sunday.