No Thoroughfare Canyon is located just within the East entrance to the Colorado National
Monument across the road from the Devils Kitchen Picnic Area. Since the trail is within the Monument boundaries you will need to pay the park pass which was $7 per private vehicle at the time of this writing.
You can park in the Devils Kitchen Picnic area and walk across the road to the trail head or there is a parking area to the left just off of the main road.
The trail begins by gently dropping down into a shallow canyon and towards a generally dry creek bed. About halfway to the bottom you will come to the junction for Echo Canyon and the Old Gordon trail as well as the No Thoroughfare Petroglyph site. Both of these trails are nice hikes and should be considered some time. At this junction you need to take the right hand trail. The beginning of the trail is very well maintained and is easy to follow. Just under half a mile you will come to yet another trail junction indicating Devils Kitchen that branches off to the left. Devils Kitchen is another excellent short hike that should be taken sometime as well. The trail continues to wind through the sagebrush for a short ways farther and eventually drops 
down into the wash. One thing to keep in mind is that the trail follows this wash most of the way so if there are thunderstorms in the area be very cautious of flash floods.
As the trail continues on you will pass through different layers of rock beginning with sandstone and ending in the deep layer of granite. As you get deeper into the canyon the walls on each side get higher and higher and steeper. Once you get this far you should remember the flash flood warning because there is really nowhere to go if one should occur.
After about 1 mile you will come to the first pool. This is a nice spot to take a break or turn around if you have little ones. This is an interesting canyon because up to this point the wash is dry. Once I reached the first pool there was a steady stream of water running off of the small waterfall but there was no water running out of the pool. Throughout my whole hike up 
the canyon the creek bed I was following would have water flowing for a while then it would just disappear underground. From this point a small sign directs you up and around the right side of the pool and down the other side to the creek bed.
Overall the trail is about 8 miles one way and eventually climbs its way out onto CS Road on Glade Park. There is one “Pool” and two waterfalls on this trail. My goal was to make it to the second waterfall. The interesting thing about this trail is that each “pool”/waterfall is about one mile apart so that makes it a little easier to gauge how far you went. Unfortunately, I did not make my goal and was only able to make it to the first waterfall. As I progressed up the canyon the trail became increasingly more rugged and difficult to follow. The chances of getting lost are very slim as long as you stay in the creek bed, the actual trail just seemed to come and go.
No Thoroughfare Canyon has quite a bit of history to it. The canyon was originally not part of the Colorado National Monument at its inception and was added later. The Indians used the canyon extensively as indicated by the petroglyphs at the beginning of the trail and the park service has found artifact sites farther up. During the early to mid 50’s the movie “The Devils Doorway” was filmed 
predominately in the canyon and if you know where to look you can see some of the places that were filmed in the movie. A darker chapter in the canyons history occurred in 1915 when a group of cattlemen ran a herd of Angora Sheep off the rim of the canyon during the time of the “Sheep Wars”.
No Thoroughfare Canyon is a beautiful place that is interesting and a slight challenge. Although I didn’t make it the whole way or made my goal, I still plan on hiking the length of the canyon in the near future. If you plan of hiking the whole way it would be best to just go the one way and use a ride to get back to the beginning. A person could probably do a round trip in a day but it would be a very long day hiking over fairly rough terrain. Be sure to wear sturdy shoes and go prepared if you plan on going the whole distance.