Castle Butte

Castle Butte is a prominent five thousand seven hundred-foot summit in Utah’s Valley of the Gods, rising about six hundred feet above the surrounding desert and standing out as one of the area’s most recognizable isolated rock forms. Officially recognized by the United States Board on Geographic Names and also known as Eagle Plume Tower, it was first recorded as climbed in nineteen seventy-six. Its striking shape comes from two layers of the Cutler Formation: the lower Halgaito Formation, which erodes into slopes, and the upper Cedar Mesa Sandstone, which forms the steep cliffs. Those rocks preserve an early Permian geologic history, and the butte remains valued as both a landmark and a visible record of erosion.

Utah · United States