Thirty-five miles southwest of Jerome was "Balanced Rock". It was part of a large group of exposed, weathered rock in a scar that cut a swath through the surrounding farmland. It looks in the picture like it was a high point, but actually, the top of the rock was a little lower than the fields around it. The entire area was not even visible from the farms nearby.
The top of the Balanced Rock measured more than 40 feet at its maximum and tapered down to three feet at it's narrowest point. You know one day someone will be there and hear a loud crack and see it fall over. Hopefully, they will not be below it at the time.
A few facts: It is 40 tons of Rhyolite, 48 feet tall, 40 feet wide, and the pivot point is 36 inches x 17.5 inches.
David asked a few questions about the drone buzzing overhead. The owner told us to check out cgwhat.com and then click the "blog" tab. He would have a video posted later in the day.
If you click on the video you will see Balanced Rock from above. At 1:48 you can see Sam and me climbing the hill. At 1:49 David is behind me. Don't blink, we are out of frame by 1:54.
The adventurous family below decided to climb into the shade of the rock. They provide a little scale for the strange structure.
Sam was happy to take advantage of the shade whenever possible.
I was a little disappointed to read that the rock's base was reinforced with concrete back in the 1970s to protect it against vandals.
“Essentially, the Balanced Rock area (along with Twin Falls) was the site of explosive volcanic activity associated with the passage of the North American plate over the Yellowstone Hot Spot,”
“In other words, the Yellowstone volcano was here 8 million years ago and areas such as Balanced Rock and Shoshone Falls record this event,” says geology professor Shawn Willsey
Can you see the dragon climbing up the rock?
I mentioned the rock was surrounded by farmland, but here nothing grows without irrigation. This is high desert, after all, and very dry. With a giant sprinkler system in every field, the irrigation business must be pretty lucrative.
The trip to Balanced Rock took us through the Snake River canyon again maybe 20 miles downstream from Twin Falls. The river had a completely different look from a bridge that was probably not more than 30 feet above the water. There was quite the ambitious highway construction project bringing the road down to the canyon floor. To the left in the picture below, you can see where they blasted a deep cut in the wall and used the rock for fill under the roadway.
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