Overview
About Balanced Rock Picnic Area
Why stop
- Covered tables face Salt Valley and Balanced Rock.
Map
Where it is
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Arches Tour Guide
Your drive to Balanced Rock Picnic Area, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Arches National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Arches audio tourRecorded for this place
Balanced Rock“Up ahead is Balanced Rock, worth a short stop to see how its outline changes as you walk around it. The broad sandstone cap is still attached to its softer mudstone pedestal.”
Plays as you drive up to Balanced Rock Picnic Area in the Parkwolf Arches Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- Garden of Eden
- Water from a Seed
- Panorama Point
- The Windows and Double Arch
- 35 audio storiesacross Arches’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Bighorn Sheep, Pronghorn, Raven, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 28 trails, 41 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“I can’t believe how helpful this app is and how interesting the information is for each highlight along the Arches Scenic Drive! This is the first park I’ve used it in.”
Guide
More about Balanced Rock Picnic Area
A handy roadside meal breakBalanced Rock Picnic Area is a designated picnic stop on a gravel spur west of the main park…
Balanced Rock Picnic Area is a designated picnic stop on a gravel spur west of the main park road, across from Balanced Rock. It has multiple tables under a covered canopy, a vault toilet and nearby parking. Use this spur for lunch; parking for Balanced Rock's short walk is on the opposite side of the road and limited.
The picnic area and toilet are described as accessible, though route-surface and accessible-parking details aren't specified. Bring food with you; there are no restaurants in the park.
The view from the tablesThe tables face Salt Valley and Balanced Rock, so this is a good place to pause for a meal…
The tables face Salt Valley and Balanced Rock, so this is a good place to pause for a meal between sightseeing stops. The picnic area is its own stop, separate from the parking area and short trail around the rock.
The story behind Balanced RockBalanced Rock stands 128 feet tall.
Balanced Rock stands 128 feet tall. Its Entrada Sandstone capstone remains attached to an eroding pedestal of Dewey Bridge mudstone, so it isn't balancing freely. A smaller neighboring rock called Chip-Off-the-Old-Block collapsed in the winter of 1975–76. From the picnic tables you see the formation from across the road; the separate walk around its base starts from the other side.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Arches
14 sightingsBighorn SheepMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
10 sightingsPronghornMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
608 sightingsRavenMost seen around 9 AMSighting map
187 sightingsMule DeerMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
51 sightingsPrairie DogMost seen around 8 AMSighting map
15 sightingsCoyoteMost seen around 6 AMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Arches. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
