Sleeping Giant

In case you haven't noticed, my attentions have been turning more and more toward rock cities. A rock city is nothing more than a cluster of boulders. They're called "cities" because the best ones have dramatic skylines, like a city.

Truth be told, I'd take an abandoned town site over a rock city any day. But I've already explored most of the ghost towns within a half hour drive of Kane. Rock cities, by contrast, can be found at the tops of most valley walls.

Locals call this place "Sleeping Giant." The rock city itself is sort of unremarkable, aside from a few curious formations, like a boulder--second photo from the bottom--that I call the Flatiron.


Sleeping Giant is a spacious hollow beneath the vast overhang a boulder. Some say the Indians used to camp here, and it's easy to see why they would. The top photo is taken from the top of a nearby boulder. If you look closely, you can see the fire ring and the stone benches that campers have set up inside the camp site. The second photo was taken from the inside; there you see the fire ring with smoke stains on the ceiling.

It's the perfect spot to hang out for half an hour, listening to the rain falling in the forest.

If you head southeast from the rock city, you come to an overlook, seen in the bottom photo. The brook at the valley floor is known as Fools Creek, and from this height, you can hear a waterfall far below.

To get to the fabled and much visited Sleeping Giant--where I found an unopened bottle of diet pepsi--take PA666 almost to Minister Creek campground. Just before rounding the bend into the campground, turn right and ascend a big hill on FR24. The first road to the right is gated and unnumbered (it also doesn't exist on the ANF map). Park there and walk in.

This road passes through brushy forest, recently cleared. In less than ten minutes, you'll begin to sense something big, a looming presence in the trees off to your left. At first it raises the "fight or flight" hackles on the back of your neck, until you take a closer look to see that it's not forest elephants or an army of gray sasquatches, but a rock city. That's your destination.

There's a lesser rock city off to the right, sort of a Newark living in the shadow of Manhattan. It's actually worth a visit, too.

There's no hiking for me this Sunday, and I'll be working on Saturday, so I took half a day today.