City of Rocks National Preserve

City of Rocks is a national preserve in southeast Idaho.  A national preserve?  According to the visitor center people, it is a national preserve because is is owned by the National Park Service and managed by the State of Idaho.

Whatever it is called, it is an area of exposed eroded granite formations, many of which are rock climbed.  Others, like us, just look and gawk.  

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We took a walk on the Geological Interpretive Trail.  It gave us a good feel for the geology of the preserve and an up-close view of rock formations and flowers.  Of course, we looked at the windflowers.  We got a good look at some of the weathering of the granite.  Then we drove around the reserve, looking at the rocks.  Oh, you thought there was more to do?  There is if you want to climb, but we were happy just looking from the car or the short trails.

We saw a number of the named rocks and walked to the Window Arch.   After visiting Arches National Park, we are always interested in the formation of arches, a special type of erosion.

We ended our visit at the Twin Sisters who are special because two types of granite are adjacent to each other physically even though they are separated by perhaps 2 billion years of time of formation.  We also drove along the California Trail which runs through the park and is the trail that early pioneers traveled to go from the midwest to the west coast.  Many of the named formations have to do with them like Camp Rock and Register Rock.

City of Rocks is adjacent to Castle Rocks State Park.  We didn't see the geologic part of the state park, but we stayed in the campground which is closer to City of Rocks.  The campground takes reservations and has hookups, and in the heat of the summer, power is really nice.  The campground was nice with well spaced sites.  We stayed in site 11.