Welcome to the City
City of Rocks National Reserve beckons lovers of the outdoors
While Teton Valley is its own version of paradise, many residents like to hit the city from time to time. For some, this means heading to bustling coastal metropolises or international destinations.
For others, it means driving three and a half hours southwest to a megalopolis of granite skyscrapers in City of Rocks National Reserve. You don’t have to pack a nice outfit for dinner—campfire attire will more than suffice—but you’ll likely want to bring your mountain bike and climbing gear.
Located outside of Almo, Idaho, just north of the Utah border, City of Rocks is known for its rock climbing, hiking, mountain biking, camping, and incredible dark skies. In fact, at the start of 2023, the International Dark-Sky Association officially recognized City of Rocks National Reserve as an International Dark Sky Park, a rare distinction shared with just over two hundred other places around the globe.
Sleep below the towering granite spires in one of the campsites scattered along dirt roads among the sagebrush. The reserve is dog-friendly and conveniently located right next to Castle Rocks State Park, which offers climbing, hiking, biking, camping, and more. Camping isn’t required, though—a couple of small towns nearby offer a few lodging and restaurant options.
Spring and fall are popular times to visit, as is summer, though it can be quite warm. Temperatures regularly reach into the upper 80s, and occasionally up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, often with afternoon thunderstorms. Nights can be chilly to cold, and winter brings freezing temperatures and snow. Be sure to check conditions before venturing out and come prepared for weather extremes.
City of Rocks is full of fascinating geological features like joints, tafoni, arches, panholes, intrusions, xenoliths, and grus. It’s also home to mule deer, yellow-bellied marmots, mountain lions, moose, elk, coyotes, lizards, snakes—including western rattlesnakes—and even the boreal chorus frog, the reserve’s only amphibian. Bird watchers have recorded one hundred and eighty species throughout the
reserve and greater Almo Valley.
Jed Porter is a mountain guide who has been visiting City of Rocks since 2016, averaging two or three trips a year. Sometimes he’s guiding, and other times he’s just there to enjoy the other-worldly scenery. While he frequents the national reserve typically from May through October, Jed prefers fall. September and October are his favorite months.
He loves climbing the granite, and enjoys the highly varied routes, including single-pitch and multi-pitch routes. But his favorite part is what he calls the “vacation vibe.”
“I go there for work, and even when I’m there working as a guide, it feels as close to a vacation as work can get,” Jed says.
Local photographer Lara Agnew, whose images frequent the pages of Teton Valley Magazine, first started going to City of Rocks around twenty years ago, before she lived in the Tetons. She would spend a few days or a week camping and climbing. Now, she aims for an annual long weekend there with her husband; sons, ages nine and twelve; and a group of friends. Everyone gathers to enjoy climbing, mountain biking, camping, and each other’s company.
“We’re really there to be together in a beautiful place, and it’s just wonderful that there’s great climbing, too,” Lara says.
Jed relishes the family climbing opportunities, as well, and says he brought his ten-month-old there last fall, though she wasn’t climbing any routes quite yet. “It’s very special, the family climbing atmosphere for kids of all ages,” he says. City of Rocks is internationally renowned among the climbing community for its more than six hundred routes featuring a wide range of difficulties. Visitors are free to climb established routes, but to place permanent anchors, a permit from the National Park Service is required.
Weather is a consideration for outdoor activities anywhere in Idaho, and City of Rocks is no exception. Jed says the coldest visit he’s experienced was close to the summer solstice in late June when he encountered snow. Years ago, before she had a smartphone, Lara was camping in the area, and no one was paying too much attention to the weather. They crawled into their tents and slept, waking in the morning to a fresh—and unexpected—blanket of white. She was mesmerized by how the City looked under the fresh flakes. “It still carries that magic,” she says.
Whether coated in glistening snowflakes or just gorgeous bare granite, the splendor entices Lara and draws her back year after year.
“The beauty of the place is what drives me in first,” she says. “And then second are the recreational opportunities.”
The logistics and layout also make it very convenient for her friends and their families to share the adventure.
“It just has endless opportunities for people who like to climb, and then you can always find something else to do and the camping is beautiful,” she says. “You can accommodate different families, and everybody can kind of join in at different campsites throughout the day, which is great.”
To learn more, visit nps.gov/ciro.
A Guide’s Tips for First-Time Visitors
Mountain guide Jed Porter shares his go-to tips for City of Rocks neophytes:
• Plan for enough time, especially since City of Rocks is a three- to four-hour drive from Teton Valley.
• Stay longer than you think you’ll want to. Be there for long enough to make it worthwhile.
• Spend time exploring different areas within the City of Rocks. Make sure to wander around. Climbers, generally speaking, might explore a single rock or a single wall for the whole day. City of Rocks is set up to visit multiple cliffs every day, and that takes a little mental shift for climbers who are not accustomed to exploring other climbing destinations in one trip.
• Unplug and leave your laptop at home. It’s not necessarily a great place to work remotely. The signal is poor, which is one of the nice things about it—you’re off the grid.
