Wild Lands of the West | The BLM, National Geographic Magazine: Utah’s Castle Rock

Castleton Tower is a well-known, rare desert spire east of Moab, Utah, which stands 400 feet tall on top of a 1,000-foot-tall talus cone, the mass of rock debris at the base of the cliff.

It was first ascended in 1962 by geologist Huntley Ingals and climber Layton Kor. Since then, a car commerical was filmed there, and it is known as one of the Fifty Classic Climbs of North America. The soft sandstone can be tricky to negotiate, weather changes quickly, and heat is intense during the day.