Easyish Hike at Fort Rock in Fort Rock, Oregon

Fort Rock

We went to Fort Rock today! It's that giant mass of rock you see in the picture above. It starts way over there on the left and keeps going all he way to the right. It's a pretty amazing thing to look at in person. 

How to get there

Take HWY 97 south of Lapine. Follow the sign to Reno and go left onto HWY 31. After 22 miles, you'll take a left. You'll see a sign for Fort Rock. Once you get to the town of Fort Rock, follow the signs to Fort Rock. The town isn't very impressive, but there is a cute little replica of an old west town there. It's part of a museum. We stopped and looked from afar, but we didn't go inside. 

There is an educational interpretive stand at the base of the rock. There are also a few signs up a couple of the rocks at the start of the trail. There was also a person there to answer questions. There was a sign saying that his name was Vernon on the day of our trip. We didn't stop and visit with him. The best thing about this place though............It had a real bathroom! It was a real toilet that flushed! It even had running water for the sink. It didn't have soap, but just take some hand sanitizer with you! 

There wasn't really a set to take. It was more like just a bunch of interconnected paths. We started out by going up the path that's near the bathrooms. We went up and over the rock and came out the backside. Then we went a little downhill towards the other chunk of the rock. We went uphill a little bit and up into the back section of the rock. 

We decided not to explore the back section, but it did have some interesting rocks in it. We came back down the little hill we had gone up to see what the back section had, and then we took the flat path around the first rock section. 

There are a lot of little trails to explore, but we only spent about 30 minutes of so walking around. Nothing was crazy challenging or anything, but I left my poles in the car and we were a bit sore from the previous day's hike. Neither one of us were really in the mood to be dealing with inclines. They weren't steep, but I'm not much of a desert hiker. I prefer being around waterfalls.

Overall, we were both glad that we went even though we didn't explore the whole place. We're planning on going back when we're in better shape and we can climb into some of the funner places. I really liked the textures of the rocks. The one below was my favorite!