Giant Rock

I like talking to people and listening to their recommendations of places to visit. Some people stick to traditional sites... the ones that show up on TripAdvisor and have Yelp reviews. Some... well, some people send you out in the middle of the desert in search of a big rock. Yep, a Giant Rock.

When I first heard about The Giant Rock, I laughed. Um, sorry to be Captain Obvious here but the desert is filled with BIG ROCKS. No, no, they said. This one is different. So let's go check it out. 

My directions had us on tiny back roads that eventually turned into dirt. I mean, sand. Soft sand at that. Definitely designed for dune buggies, we bounced along happily in our little Toyota. After about 3 miles of dune hopping we came upon.... the Giant Rock.

These pictures do not do this thing justice. It is seven stories high and covers 5,800 sqft of ground. It claims to be the largest free standing boulder in the world. I'm all for superlatives so I was super excited to walk up and touch this massive rock.

The history of this giant boulder is quite entertaining.

While the rock has been a Native American spiritual site for thousands of years, the modern backstory of the boulder begins in the 1930's when a German immigrant and miner named Frank Critzer met a pilot named George Van Tassel. The pair became fast friends and Van Tassel loaned Critzer 30 dollars to buy mining equipment. Critzer then dug out a 400 square foot home for himself directly beneath the giant rock. This made the locals think he was crazy but since he was known to point a shotgun at those who approached his underground home, no one inquired further. In addition to being a notoriously gruff customer, Critzer was also a radio enthusiast and is said to have set up a radio antenna on top of the rock for better reception.

Unfortunately, Critzer’s German origin and radio antenna led to suspicions of his being a spy during World War II, and a police raid was made on his cavern. While the exact cause of Critzer’s death is still unknown, legend holds that when authorities attempted to extricate him by shooting tear gas canisters into his cave, one accidentally ignited a small store of explosives (for mining) and blew the peculiar loner to smithereens. As it turns out, Critzer was not a spy after all, but just what he seemed: an eccentric who wanted to be left alone to live, quite literally, under a rock.

Upon hearing of his friend’s death, Van Tassel—a high school dropout who had become a pilot—went to the boulder and reopened an old airfield at the Giant Rock in the 1950s, naming it Giant Rock Airport. Van Tassel’s war friend Howard Hughes, for whom Van Tassel was a test pilot, is said to have flown there just for a slice of Van Tassel’s wife’s pie. Source

We were there on quite a windy day but enjoyed climbing over and under the surrounding rocks. If you follow me on Lifecake, you've already seen this, but it's worth sharing again. :)