Appearance Of A City
The City of Rocks, famous among rock climbers around the world, is also steeped in history as the old California Trail and Boise-Kelton Stage Route pass through its borders. The Reserve's name was uttered more than 150 years ago by early pioneers who passed the rock formations. This comes from the City of Rocks' official guide. "We encamped at the city of the rocks, a noted place from the granite rocks rising abruptly out of the ground," wrote James Wilkins in 1849. "They are in a romantic valley clustered together, which gives them the appearance of a city." Wilkins was among the first wagon travelers to fix the name City of Rocks to what looked like "a dismantled, rock-built city of the Stone Age."
For years the City of Rocks served as a landmark for pioneers and later freight routes which passed this way (52,000 emigrants passed through here in 1852).
Although the City of Rocks might be a destination to some, it won't take long to explore this relatively new National Reserve (so designated in 1988) from the seat of a snowmobile. Sleds are limited to the Reserve's existing roads, which total about 11 miles (no chance of getting lost here). We entered the Reserve at the Almo entrance after a brief stop at the Reserve headquarters (about 2.6 miles from the entrance) and then stayed in the northern half of the Reserve. City of Rocks National Reserve Superintendent Wallace Keck explained that when the snow conditions are right, you can make a loop from the "Y" (where the routes split in the Park and one road heads south toward the Junction entrance and the other toward Emery Canyon) past the Twin Sisters rock formation, out the Junction entrance and then back north to the Emery Canyon entrance and to the Y. It's best to check the road conditions in the Reserve before heading out. The Park's visitors center is open Monday through Friday in the winter.
If you head northwest from the Y, you pass many of the Reserve's biggest rock formations. We parked (where you can park depends on snow conditions; again, check with the visitors center for parking locations) near Elephant Rock, unloaded and headed toward Emery Canyon. We passed Elephant Rock, Bath Rock, the Inner City (which is all the rocks and formations in the valley) and the Bread Loaves. Some of these unique granite formations reach as much as 600 feet above the ground. Snow conditions varied but there was plenty enough on the roads we were riding