Peak Names: Owl Rock & "Off-Balanced Rock"

Peak Heights: 5,260' / 5,220'

Location: Arches National Park, Utah

Route: West Crack / NE Chimney

Difficulty: 5.8

Round Trip Stats: 0.7 mi, 330 ft

Date Climbed: 10/15/2016

Owl Rock is by far the most popular tower climb in Arches National Park, and perhaps the best easy tower in the entire greater Moab area. The standard single pitch route on its west side follows a nice crack system with interesting hueco-like features and the climbing is fun and well protected. It seemed like the perfect laid back objective for our group of four with a wedding to attend later in the day. Dom and Daniel climbed as one team and Kevin & I as another.

With plenty of time to spare afterwards we decided to tack on "Off-Balanced Rock", another short tower just down the street. Dom & I had already climbed this one before too, but like Owl Rock it was worth a repeat with friends. We climbed the two pitch route as a team of four, laughing as we listened to each other grunting up the very physical chimney that is the second pitch.