We stopped by the other day. Located in the Mojave Desert north of Palm Springs, near Yucca Valley CA and the tiny town of Landers CA, its DD coordinates are ▲ 34.3328, -116.3886. Giant Rock is estimated to weigh around 25,000 tons.
Giant Rock is the largest freestanding boulder in North America and is purported to be the largest free standing boulder in the world (as per wiki).
What anomalous places have you been to and also found interesting? Got any pics to share,
We’ve also been to Yeager Rock. It’s a glacial erratic in central Washington state, at DD coordinates ▲ 47.8155, -119.553. I’ll look for my pictures but that was several years ago.
On a smaller scale, I visited the Moeraki Boulders in New Zealand back in 2005. The tide and light were just right so that this boulder looked like it was floating. I’ve always thought this pic might have been a good Pink Floyd album cover.
There’s a similar collection of seaside concretions south of Point Arena CA called “Bowling Ball Beach”. I’ve wanted to check it out for a while but haven’t been able to time my visit to a low enough tide.
The creek of Clark Gully disappears once it gets out of the gully. It doesn’t go directly into a sinkhole at a fixed point, nor does it peter out over miles like desert streams. It completely sinks into the rubble over the span of a few hundred feet, but gradually and the exact point at which it disappears entirely depends on the water flow.
The stream bed nonetheless continues for a mile or so afterward. So it’s possible that the water flows but entirely underground within the channel, except for anomalous flood years.
Rock City — tourist attraction in Chattanooga, TN, atop Lookout Mountain. A walking path takes you around different rock formations, including Balanced Rock, a 1000 ton boulder balanced on a smaller boulder just waiting for ignorant tourists to come push it off (kidding, sort of).
In New York State there are several places like Rock City, one of which is also called Rock City. Rock City TN has the deepest and widest chasms, and lots of them, but the ones in New York you are allowed to climb up and around instead of staying on the paved trail. My favorite one is Panama Rocks since it is as extensive as Rock City TN but you are free to roam. It’s passages are narrower but that can be a plus since it makes them feel more spectacular than the impression their smaller height would normally give.
Some of them also have precarious rocks but I can’t think of a particular one in New York. The specific one that I can think of in such a place is at Minister Creek in Pennsylvania in Allegheny National Forest, which is the smallest of the ones I am a fan of, but it does have one place where a cliff that is around 30 feet high ends except that there is one place on the clifftop where you can just walk onto a separately-standing boulder. I’m not even sure how high the cliff really is because the stride is so natural it doesn’t feel dangerous at all. But when you’re isolated on that rock, you can look at the 180 degree view of the approximately 400 foot deep valley and then the full splendor of where you are hits you.
In central California between Paso Robles and Bakersfield is Carrizo Plain National Monument, home of Painted Rock. The sandstone outcrop in the middle of nowhere not only has petroglyphs but a family of barn owls roosting in the alcoves.
Depending on the season you can take a guided tour or a self-guided tour. If you take a self-guided tour in the wintertime there’s a chance you might have it all to yourself.
Here’s something you (probably) don’t see every day: River of Rocks.
You can hike the trail down from Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and either circumvent the feature or, like Mister Crazy burpo, you can hike across the rocks themselves; you will hear running water flowing underneath the rocks — it’s strange.
Not sure how anomalous this is, but Chimney Rock State Park has an interesting formation to conquer:
They blasted an elevator shaft through the solid rock of the base so you can take the lift to the level with the stairs and walk up to the top. My PJ (see avatar) climbed from the base all the way to the top; she seemed so pleased with herself!
I seem to remember walking between and under large boulders while on the downslope of a mountain there, but I can’t find pictures of those now. I can’t think of anywhere else that has that.
And if nothing else, it’s certainly distinctive. I saw it a year or two before Last of the Mohicans came out, and I recognized the waterfall in the film from just that one visit.
Another huge rock that is strangely out of place in its surroundings, is the Okotoks Erratic, better known as the “Big Rock”:
No, it is not the picture in the thumbnail; since the link leads to an Alberta government site, the picture is of the Alberta legislature. Regardless, the page is informative, and has plenty of photos of the Big Rock, including some with people, to show scale.
Although it is not local to me (it’s about a two-hour drive), I’ve driven by it a few times, and yep, it is big, at about 135 by 60 feet and is 30 feet high. While a tourist attraction, it has spiritual significance to the local Indigineous peoples, so tourists are asked not to climb on it. That doesn’t stop a Calgary brewery from calling itself Big Rock Brewery, however.
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