Parking
Use the Balanced Rock Viewing Area parking lot along the main park road, 9.2 miles from the visitor center. Parking is limited.
Overview
About Balanced Rock Trail
Why go
- A very short loop gets you close to a 128-foot sandstone formation.
- The paved start has a separate view toward The Windows and the La Sal Mountains.
Heads up
- The complete circuit has steps and uneven rock beyond the paved stretch.
Map & elevation
The route
Loading the Arches map
Full mapElevation5,016–5,036 ft
Plan your hike
Before you go
Parking
Safety
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Arches Tour Guide
Your drive to Balanced Rock Trail, 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 trailhead
Balanced Rock0:00 / 0:27
“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 this trailhead in the Parkwolf Arches Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- Garden of Eden
- Panorama Point
- Water from a Seed
- 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.”
Trail guide
Hiking Balanced Rock Trail
The short loopBalanced Rock Trail is a 0.3-mile loop from the viewing-area parking lot, usually 15–30 minutes.
Balanced Rock Trail is a 0.3-mile loop from the viewing-area parking lot, usually 15–30 minutes. The first stretch is flat and paved; the circuit continues around the rock over steps, slopes and uneven ground, then returns by the same paved approach. The pavement is only the beginning, not the full loop. This is a good quick walk if you want to see the formation from several sides; the paved viewpoint is enough for a brief stop if the rougher path is not for you. Dogs are not allowed, though service animals are.
Around the rockThe paved viewpoint looks toward The Windows and the La Sal Mountains.
The paved viewpoint looks toward The Windows and the La Sal Mountains. The loop gets you closer and changes the outline of Balanced Rock as you circle its base. For a photo, use the formation as the foreground and keep the distant Windows and La Sal range in the view from the paved side.
Why it standsThe formation rises 128 feet.
The formation rises 128 feet. Its cap is Entrada Sandstone, attached to a pedestal of softer Dewey Bridge mudstone; it is not a loose boulder balancing on a point. The different rock layers erode at different rates, shaping the narrow pedestal and broad cap. The upper boulder is estimated at 3,600 tons, and erosion will eventually bring it down.
The smaller neighborA nearby smaller formation called “Chip-Off-the-Ol'-Block” collapsed in the winter of 1975–76.
A nearby smaller formation called “Chip-Off-the-Ol'-Block” collapsed in the winter of 1975–76. Balanced Rock is part of a landscape that is still changing, even when the trail feels like a short stop beside the road.
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.
