The Most Remarkable Rock Formations in the United States
18 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most remarkable rock formations in the United States are El Capitan, Devils Tower and Landscape Arch. The list covers 18 rock formations. Last updated 13 October 2026.
The United States has an unusual concentration of rock formations because several geological provinces meet within it. The Colorado Plateau preserves layer upon layer of sandstone, once desert dunes and riverbeds, that an arid climate erodes into arches, fins and swirling waves. Volcanic activity in the West left necks, columns and tuff cones, while glaciers polished the granite of the Sierra Nevada. Even dry lakebeds hold surprises, in the form of mineral towers that formed underwater.
El Capitan in Yosemite rises around 900 metres of sheer granite above the valley, and Devils Tower in Wyoming became the first national monument in 1906. Shiprock is the neck of an ancient volcano rising alone from the New Mexico plain, Landscape Arch in Utah is one of the longest natural arches in the world, and The Wave in Arizona shows the fossilised cross-bedding of Jurassic dunes. Natural Bridge in Virginia, a limestone arch over a creek, was once owned by Thomas Jefferson.
Volcanic forms appear as well. At Kasha-Katuwe in New Mexico, soft pumice and tuff have been eroded into cones topped by harder caprocks, and Devils Postpile in California is a wall of basalt columns as regular as the Giant's Causeway. Garden of the Gods in Colorado sets red sandstone fins against Pikes Peak, the Trona Pinnacles in California are tufa spires rising from a dry lakebed, Cathedral Rock in Sedona is a red sandstone butte, and Oregon's Painted Hills are striped in red and gold clay.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | El Capitan | Rock formation | |
| 2 | Devils Tower | Rock formation | |
| 3 | Landscape Arch | Natural arch | |
| 4 | Shiprock | Rock formation | |
| 5 | The Wave | Rock formation | |
| 6 | Natural Bridge (Virginia) | Natural arch | |
| 7 | Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument | Rock formation | |
| 8 | Painted Hills | Rock formation | |
| 9 | Devils Postpile National Monument | Rock formation | |
| 10 | Garden of the Gods | Rock formation | |
| 11 | Trona Pinnacles | Rock formation | |
| 12 | Cathedral Rock (Sedona) | Rock formation | |
| 13 | White Pocket | Rock formation | |
| 14 | Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness | Rock formation | |
| 15 | Smith Rock State Park | Rock formation | |
| 16 | Needles | Rock formation | |
| 17 | Monument Rocks | Rock formation | |
| 18 | Thor's Well | Rock formation |
01 El Capitan
United States37.734° N 119.637° W
Image by carelbron0 from Pixabay For non-climbers, the pleasure is looking up from the valley floor at a face so large that climbers on it are barely visible specks, and at the first view of it from Tunnel View, where El Capitan frames the left side of the valley opposite Bridalveil Fall. The top can also be reached on foot by a long trail that climbs out of the valley beside Yosemite Falls and heads west — a strenuous full-day hike.
Did you know? In 2018 Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell climbed The Nose in under two hours, a route that first took 47 days of work.
02 Devils Tower
United States44.590° N 104.715° W
Image by jjorstad from Pixabay The tower has its own climbing history. On 4 July 1893 two local men, William Rogers and Willard Ripley, reached the top by a ladder of wooden pegs driven into a crack; a stretch of it can still be seen from the trail. In 1941 a parachutist, George Hopkins, landed on the summit as a stunt and was stranded for six days before climbers brought him down. Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) made the tower famous around the world. The Tower Trail, a loop of about two kilometres around the base, is the best way to feel its scale, looking up through the pines at columns that seem to lean outward as they rise.
Did you know? Stranded on the summit in 1941, parachutist George Hopkins endured cold, rain and winds of about 50 miles per hour for six days.
03 Landscape Arch
United States · 24.6 km from Moab38.791° N 109.607° W
Thomas Wolf , www.foto-tw.de · CC BY-SA 3.0 It is also a lesson in how arches end. Large slabs broke away in 1991 and again in 1995, and the trail that once passed beneath it was closed after those rockfalls. You now look at it from a viewpoint at the end of a short spur, knowing that you are watching a landform in the late stage of its life.
Did you know? The 1991 rockfall dropped a slab more than 18 metres long and over a metre thick from the underside of the span.
04 Shiprock
United States36.688° N 108.836° W
Image by Christiane1956 from Pixabay The rock stands on the Navajo Nation and is sacred to the Navajo, who call it Tsé Bitʼaʼí, "rock with wings". Navajo tradition holds that a great bird carried the ancestors of the people here from the north. American surveyors first named it "The Needle" in 1860; by the 1870s maps used the name Shiprock, after its resemblance to the tall sails of a nineteenth-century clipper. Climbers made the first ascent in 1939 — among them David Brower — in what is recorded as the first climb in the United States to use expansion bolts. After several serious accidents, the Navajo Nation banned all climbing on the rock in 1970.
Did you know? Shiprock belongs to the Navajo volcanic field, which also includes Agathla, another volcanic neck in Monument Valley.
05 The Wave
United States36.996° N 112.006° W
Image by 12019 from Pixabay The Wave lies within the Paria Canyon–Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, managed by the Bureau of Land Management, and to protect the fragile sandstone the number of daily visitors is strictly limited. Most permits are allocated by an online lottery months in advance, with a smaller number through a daily lottery close to the site. There is no marked trail: hikers cross about three miles of open desert, slickrock and sand from the trailhead, making a round trip of around six miles.
Did you know? The two main troughs measure about 19 by 36 metres and 2 by 16 metres, so the famous formation is far smaller than photos suggest.
06 Natural Bridge (Virginia)
Natural Bridge
United States37.627° N 79.545° W
George Wharton James · Public domain The bridge passed through many private owners and grew into a resort, with hotels and, from 1927, floodlighting switched on by President Coolidge. In 2016 it became Natural Bridge State Park, managed by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The trail beneath the arch follows Cedar Creek upstream to the Lost River, where water issues from the side of the gorge, and on to the 9-metre Lace Falls.
Did you know? In 1742 John Howard's exploring party passed under the arch, then floated in buffalo-skin boats down the New, Kanawha and Ohio rivers to the Mississippi.
07 Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument
United States · 26.5 km from Los Alamos35.674° N 106.419° W
Marshallhenrie · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Slot Canyon trail threads one of these narrow corridors for about 1.5 miles before climbing some 630 feet to a viewpoint above the cones, with the Jemez Mountains, Cochiti Pueblo lands and the Rio Grande valley beyond. The Cave Loop trail runs along the base of the cliffs, past tent rocks and a small cavate, a dwelling cut into the soft rock similar to those at nearby Bandelier. The monument was established by President Bill Clinton in January 2001 and is managed jointly by the Bureau of Land Management and the Pueblo de Cochiti.
Did you know? People have lived around these canyons for some 4,000 years, and several large ancestral pueblos were built nearby in the 14th and 15th centuries.
08 Painted Hills
United States44.661° N 120.273° W
Image by Gruendercoach from Pixabay The hills are one of three units of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, alongside Sheep Rock and Clarno, and cover a little over 3,100 acres. Five short trails each start from their own parking area. The Painted Hills Overlook trail gives the classic wide view of the main ridge; the Painted Cove trail crosses a boardwalk through a small amphitheatre of crumbly red and yellow mounds you can see up close; Red Scar Knoll and Leaf Hill are brief loops; and the Carroll Rim trail, the only demanding one, climbs about 400 feet to a panorama over the whole unit. The soil crust is easily scarred and footprints remain for years, so staying on the paths matters more here than almost anywhere.
Did you know? The mudstones here preserve leaves of more than a hundred tree species and imprints of over fifty kinds of seeds, cones and nuts.
09 Devils Postpile National Monument
United States37.624° N 119.084° W
Frank Kovalchek from Anchorage, Alaska, USA · CC BY 2.0 The site was once part of Yosemite National Park, but was cut out of the park after gold was found near Mammoth Lakes in 1905. A plan followed to blast the columns into rubble for a hydroelectric dam on the river; John Muir and others campaigned against it, and on 6 July 1911 President William Howard Taft proclaimed the area a national monument. Today it covers just under 800 acres — a small reserve built around a single, extraordinary piece of geology.
Did you know? Unlike many columnar formations, the Postpile has almost no horizontal joints cutting across its columns.
10 Garden of the Gods
United States · 7 km from Colorado Springs38.878° N 104.871° W
Image by bwellen from Pixabay The park exists in its present form because of a gift. Charles Elliott Perkins bought land here in 1879, and after his death his family gave it to the city in 1909 on condition that it remain a free public park. It became a National Natural Landmark in 1971. Today trails, climbing routes and roads wind through the formations, and the visitor centre explains their geology and history; come at sunrise, when the red walls are lit against Pikes Peak.
Did you know? Archaeological evidence suggests people were visiting the site by about 1330 BC, and that groups camped among the rocks by around 250 BC.
11 Trona Pinnacles
United States35.617° N 117.368° W
Image by Hear2heaL from Pixabay The site lies at about 1,800 ft (550 m) and covers some 3,800 acres of public land administered by the Bureau of Land Management as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern; it was designated a National Natural Landmark in the late 1960s. Its otherworldly look has made it a favourite location for filmmakers: the pinnacles appear in Star Trek V, Planet of the Apes and Battlestar Galactica, as well as in music videos by artists including Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Phoebe Bridgers.
Did you know? The spires were once nicknamed Cathedral City for their resemblance to a cluster of church towers.
12 Cathedral Rock (Sedona)
Cathedral Rock
United States34.820° N 111.793° W
Image by Sunfellow from Pixabay There are two classic ways to experience it. The Cathedral Rock Trail, a short but very steep scramble on bare rock, climbs from the Back O' Beyond trailhead to the gaps between the spires, where the view opens over the whole red-rock basin. The other is the view from below: at Red Rock Crossing, a Forest Service day-use area on Oak Creek, the butte is reflected in the slow water, framed by sandstone ledges along the bank — the scene that appears on countless posters and calendars. The rock lies within Coconino National Forest.
Did you know? Its red colour comes from hematite, an iron oxide coating the sand grains of the Schnebly Hill Formation, a layer up to about 300 metres thick.
13 White Pocket
United States37.458° N 111.704° W
Image by igormattio from Pixabay White Pocket lies within Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, proclaimed by President Bill Clinton on 9 November 2000 and administered by the Bureau of Land Management. The monument covers almost 294,000 acres of the Paria Plateau, the Vermilion Cliffs and Paria Canyon, and also contains Coyote Buttes with the famous sandstone formation known as The Wave. The rock formations begin about 100 yards west of the parking area at the end of the sand roads.
Did you know? The reds, oranges and yellows of the sandstone come from iron oxides such as hematite, goethite and limonite filling the spaces between quartz grains.
14 Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness
United States36.304° N 108.118° W
John Fowler from Placitas, NM, USA · CC BY 2.0 The present landscape is far younger than the rocks. The badlands themselves were carved within the last few thousand years, roughly 2,800 to 5,600 years ago, as water stripped away the soft layers. Where a harder band of sandstone protects the softer clay beneath it, the erosion leaves behind hoodoos — pillars and toadstool shapes topped by flat caps of stone. The area was designated as wilderness in 1984, and in March 2019 the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act added roughly 2,250 acres. It is the largest publicly accessible area of badlands in the San Juan Basin.
Did you know? In places ancient coal seams caught fire and baked the surrounding rock into a hard red stone known as clinker or red dog.
15 Smith Rock State Park
United States · 37.6 km from Bend44.369° N 121.138° W
Image by TheCADguy from Pixabay Smith Rock is known as the birthplace of modern American sport climbing. In 1983 Alan Watts brought the ethics of sport climbing to its walls, and the first route in the country graded 5.14 was climbed here. Between 1992 and 2009 some 500 new routes were added, and by 2010 the park had more than 1,800. Its most famous landmark is Monkey Face, a 350-ft (107 m) free-standing spire, while the route Just Do It (5.14c) remains one of its celebrated testpieces.
Did you know? The Picnic Lunch Wall, usually the first cliff visitors see, rises about 700 ft above the trail.
16 Needles
United States · 37.2 km from Rapid City43.837° N 103.549° W
Mailseth 's wife · CC BY-SA 3.0 Much of the area's fame comes from the road that threads through it. The Needles Highway, a 14-mile (23 km) stretch of South Dakota Highway 87 finished in 1922, winds between the spires and squeezes through narrow tunnels blasted in solid granite, including the Needles Eye Tunnel beside the spire of the same name. It is part of the Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway, named after the senator who championed the parks of the Black Hills.
Did you know? The Conns climbed here in smooth-soled tennis shoes with an 80-foot rope tied around the waist, and usually climbed back down rather than rappelling.
17 Monument Rocks
United States38.791° N 100.762° W
Wistar92 · CC0 The rocks were a landmark long before they were a sight. Explorers on John C. Frémont's expeditions noted them in the 1840s, and in the 1860s the Smoky Hill Trail to the Colorado goldfields passed nearby. In 1865 the Butterfield Overland Despatch began running stages along the route, and Fort Monument was established the same year to protect travellers. In 1968 Monument Rocks became the first site in Kansas to be designated a National Natural Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior, and in 2008 they were named, jointly with Castle Rock some 31 miles to the east, one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas. The formations stand on private land whose owners allow the public to visit.
Did you know? The Smoky Hill Chalk is a fossil Lagerstätte, famous for exceptionally preserved mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, the flying reptile Pteranodon and the toothed diving bird Hesperornis.
18 Thor's Well
United States44.278° N 124.114° W
Image by BlenderTimer from Pixabay Cape Perpetua itself rises more than 800 ft (about 245 m) above the sea, and on a clear day the view from its crest takes in some 70 miles of coastline. Captain James Cook named the headland on 7 March 1778, the feast day of Saint Perpetua. It became part of the Siuslaw National Forest in 1908; in 1933 a Civilian Conservation Corps camp built trails, a campground and the stone West Shelter lookout on the summit, and in the 1960s the Cape Perpetua Scenic Area was created to protect some 2,700 acres of old-growth forest. Shell middens left by Native American communities lie along the shore path, and the tidepools below form a protected marine garden.
Did you know? Native Americans gathered mussels, crabs, sea urchins and clams on this stretch of shore for at least 6,000 years.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most remarkable rock formations in the United States?
- On our list, El Capitan ranks first, followed by Devils Tower and Landscape Arch.
- How did The Wave in Arizona form?
- The Wave is carved into Navajo Sandstone, which formed from wind-blown dunes in the Jurassic period. The layers of those dunes, preserved as cross-bedding, were later exposed and smoothed by wind and water into the flowing bands seen today.
- What is the difference between a natural arch and a natural bridge?
- A natural bridge is formed by running water, as when a stream cuts through rock beneath it, as at Natural Bridge in Virginia. A natural arch is formed mainly by weathering, as with the sandstone arches of Utah.
- How were the Trona Pinnacles formed?
- The Trona Pinnacles are tufa towers made of calcium carbonate. They grew underwater where mineral-rich springs met the alkaline water of a prehistoric lake, and they were left standing when the lake dried up.
- How many rock formations are on this list in the United States?
- The list covers 18 rock formations.