Balanced Rock stands 128' tall and features a 55' tall cap rock estimated to weigh 3577' tons. A short trail leads around the base with exceptional views across the Garden of Eden to the La Sal Mountains. The nearby Petrified Dunes span an area once covered by vast sand dunes that were compressed by overlying sediments, and cemented by quartz and calcite. Subsequent erosion created the rounded domes of Navajo Sandstone we see today.

The Manti-La Sal National Forest east of Moab is named for a Book of Mormon city (Manti), and snow-capped summits thought by early Spanish explorers to look like 'salt' (La Sal)

Balanced Rock stands 128' tall with a 55' cap rock and a 73' base

Ancient sand dunes were covered by layers of sediment, compressed and cemented by quartz and calcite into the Navajo Sandstone 'petrified' dunes we see today

Arches can generally be grouped into 5 classes: Cliff Wall Arch, Free Standing Arch, Pothole Arch, Natural Bridge, and Non-Arch Openings

Blackbrush's genus name 'Coleogyne' is from the Greek 'koleos' which means sheath, and 'gune' which means ovary

Rainwater penetrates porous Entrada Sandstone and dissolves the calcite bond in its particles, quickly eroding the rock

Cryptobiotic crusts stabilize soil, fix nitrogen and increase soil's ability to absorb and retain water

In the early 1980s biologists began relocating desert bighorn sheep from Canyonlands to establish new herds across southeast Utah

The Manti-La Sal Forest National Forest contains over 5000 known archeological sites dating from 10,000 years ago to the mid-1900s

The massive boulder that distinguishes Balanced Rock is estimated to weigh 3,577 tons (approximately 7.1 million pounds!)

Pinyon-Juniper stands become more sparse at lower elevations, and Juniper will be more common than Pinyon because it's more tolerant of dought

A rock span must have a light opening of at least three feet in one direction to count as an official arch

Navajo Sandstone is found along canyon rims and as rounded buttes and domes across Arches and Canyonlands

Many desert wildflowers can avoid drought and heat simply by surviving as seeds or bulbs in the soil, and for many years if necessary

65 million years ago the sediments that form the features we see today in Arches were buried thousands of feet below an ancient sea bed