Saturday, August 28, 2010 -- There is a unique adrenaline which surges through your soul as you wait for the last minutes of the workweek fall from the clock. When it finally strikes 5:00pm you rush home, throw your gear together and bolt out the door with your camping buddies knowing that the only scheduled delay between you and a remote campsite is for cheap hamburgers and some gas. Some weekends really are built for twisted travels.
I visited City of Rocks, Idaho almost ten years ago and have been dying to get back to the imposing monoliths and boulders in a remote area on the Idaho/Utah border. Just outside of Almo, Idaho sits City of Rocks National Reserve and Castle Rocks State Park which have both become a Mecca for rock climbers.
From Ogden, UT we made it to Snowville, ID (just past the UT/ID border) by sunset and witnessed an impressive rainbow looming over dry farms with hugged the rolling hills. Deer seemed to be everywhere in the southern section of Idaho and it is easy to imagine there will be many who call this hunting season a success.
We made Malta, Idaho by nightfall and soon we were traveling alone on a two lane in the dark. Under the cloak of darkness we witnessed two large horned-owls swooping over us as we pulled into the park. Luckily, we found an open campsite, pitched our tents with the help of beams from our vehicle and quickly fell asleep atop a leaking air mattress.
Obviously it’s hard to get a sense of place in the dark, but with the glow of sunrise we emerged from our synthetic tent cocoons to see light touch the granitic rock formations and found ourselves in the most impressive of places.
After exploring and hiking through the monoliths we then had the chance to visit some well hide petroglyphs and evidence of wagon trains and pioneer travelers.
