City of Rocks

As we were walking out of Glacier, we actually didn't know whether we were going to be heading North into Canada, or South to Selway-Bitterroot, or the Crazies, or to City of Rocks. I am not totally sure why, but we decided on City of Rocks.  I liked this because Idaho is the last Western state that I was to do something in and spend a night there (more than just drive through).

City of Rocks is located in southern Idaho very close to the boarder with both Utah and Nevada. It is this area that full of these very interesting blobby rock formations.

City of Rocks

We got there at about midnight, and the next day took the first true rest day of the entire trip. As in we spent 24 hours just hanging out in our nice shady campsite reading, talking, and sleeping. We thought about climbing as there was a few routes literally a 15 second walk from our site, but it rained or was threatening to rain for most of the afternoon. This was totally fine since we were not doing anything much anyway, and it made for some really nice evening lighting for photos.

Evening rainbow from our campsite

We spent the next couple days exploring the area trying out the climbing at some of the more popular rocks. If you read Nico's post on this, you will find that she was not impressed. It is a very different style that we are used to and I enjoyed the challenge. It was certainly a bit scary though since the protection on the sport routes were barely adequate. A 5.9 route was generally bolted as if you were a 5.11 climber.

Doing some trad climbing since that felt safer than the sport...

Overall I enjoyed the climbing even if it is not my favorite, and it was a good place to see and spend a few days.

Really cool rock formations though