City of Rocks National Reserve

We encountered a cattle drive as we entered City of Rocks National Reserve.  The area was named City of Rocks by pioneers traveling the California Trail in the 1800's.

Today this area is internationally renowned  for rock climbing with about 700 routes.
There are also over 22 miles of hiking trails here, we combined several overlapping trails to hike for 6.5 miles with 1,300 ft of overall gain.

 There are many large granite spires.

There are also streams in the springtime.

We had fun finding a variety of rock formations along the trails.

 Bath Rock

 Window Arch














View through Window Arch

 We also found boulders with windows in them.

















Along with other arches.

 Views of nearby snow capped mountains.

Some of the trails go through aspen groves.

 Lots of interesting granite formations.

 So much to see, a wide variety of windows and arches.

 We saw rock climbers on several of the routes above us.

Piled boulders

 We walked all around Arch Rock before

 we spotted the arch high atop the rock.

So much to see and enjoy.

Pioneers wrote their names on the rock with axle grease.

a mountain bluebird














Some of the wildflowers we saw in bloom along the trail:

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