The City of Rocks and User-created "Social" Trails

Angélica and Boris, two friendly locals who introduced themselves to Janet and I.  The other locals were too shy to introduce themselves.

The City of Rocks is a valley full of granite boulders in Southern Idaho.  To get there from Logan, you head west out of Cache Valley through Riverside and then onto I-84 in Tremonton.  You then cross into Idaho through some windy antelope country.  After exiting at Malta you cut through Elba and Almo to the "city." It is far away, and it is beautiful.  Most people would describe the encompassing Raft River Valley as a barren and exposed valley of sagebrush dissected by lonely roads that connect dreary towns that are colloquially referred to as "rusting piles of farming equipment."  The pioneers on the Oregon Trail called the place "paradise" because there was a river and some grass for their teams in the sagebrush.

Part of the reason The City of Rocks is designated a National Reserve by the Park Service is the cultural history of the area.  There was a main intersection of routes of the California and Oregon Trails in the Raft River Valley.  Misspelled frontier names scrawled in charcoal with dates like '72 or '63 are still faintly visible on the slowly aging granite boulders that line the old trails.  In some places, tire ruts are still visible.  That fact is a powerful one to me.  The trail of the California Trail was made by traffic--just the same as any unofficial, user-created "social" trail.  Wheels and footsteps compact the ground and squeeze out any air in the soil, rendering the ground sterile.  Vegetation stops growing.  The compacting process lowers the trail relative to the ground on either side.  Depending on the topography this lowered ground can short-circuit water drainage in the area.  The trail becomes a seasonal stream.  Water-caused erosion occurs and the trail becomes permanent.  After 150 years, the tire ruts are still visible pretty much only where water drainage occurs.  The lesson is to stay on the trail and leave the social trails alone.  If you don't, your tracks could be there for decades (if they don't lead to washouts and promote total erosion) as all those footsteps squash the vitality out of the soil.  If on a trail on a hillside and the social trail cuts a more direct route through switchbacks, then it creates a slide for water to wash away the whole trail right down the slope.  If you like the trail, stay on it.

The skyline of the "city"

The City of Rocks is a result of the weathering of granite.  Granite is tough, and the initial weathering just adjusts the top layer to form a protective cap that over the granite lying underneath.  Then the whole column weathers even slower.  The surrounding rocks erode away leaving natural granite spires jutting from the ground.   Today, rock climbers drawn to the intricate granite formations make up nearly all of the visitors to the "city."  I would wager (a lot of money) that The City of Rocks has more climbable granite faces than permanent residents.  As an aside, amateur rock climbers are amusing to watch as they slowly pull themselves up an otherwise unremarkable granite face, relaying announcements of intentions from the climber to the various safety personnel at the top and bottom.   The effort and difficulty doesn't show itself to the spectator very readily and it seems an unrewarding and overly complicated endeavor at first glance.

Two mediocre pictures of a climber in City of the Rocks.  I promised his wife I would email the pics after standing under her husband looking up through a zoom lens.  But I misplaced the email address, so if anyone knows it, or knows where I put it, please let me know.  Here's to hoping that he reads my blog.

Field of wild iris between Sawtooth National Forest and City of the Rocks

From The City of Rocks we went up into the hills around the "city" to camp.  The hills are part of the Sawtooth National Forest.  We had incredible views both as the sun set and again when it rose of the valleys on either side.  Marmot and mule deer frequently crossed our paths.

The view from the Sawtooth forest out over Idaho in the late afternoon.  The haze added to the dreamscape feel after a long day.

On Sunday morning we made our way down the dirt roads back towards Burley and around on to Logan.  We took the long road because we were low on gas and Burley is the closest gas out there.  However dirt roads are more like rock roads on top of hills, and rock roads in The City of Rocks are made of granite.  As we rolled down in neutral we noticed we had gotten a flat.  The tire had ripped an unrepairable hole, because her tires were bald and we were driving down a granite road in a minivan.  We pulled out the compact spare and changed the tire, still about ten miles of dirt road from pavement and then another 15 miles from gas.  Several people drove by us, and most of them slowed, although only to make sure that we had indeed suffered a flat tire.  One person even stopped, although only to ask us to move more into the ditch at the side of the road.  The amusing part of the story is that this occurred on Sunday morning.. on July 3rd.. in Southern Idaho, which is better described by the term "Mormon Country."  Luckily, Wal-Mart's global conquest is nearly complete and we were able to find a tire.  For various reasons, Janet could not tell her parents the whole story, so they would not agree to buy a whole set and so Janet maintained the lie and only purchased one tire.  She has since gotten her parents to pay for a full set, so now in the back of her clean-shoed home she has a compact spare and a brand-new full-size tire.  The buffalo is built to roam.

The view down on The City of Rocks the morning of Sunday, July 3.