What Are We Up To

Drawings of J Goldsborough Bruff in the City of Rocks

The continued hunt for Sarcophagus Rock 2024 By Jeanne Rhoades Young – 12/9/25

“If you are going to do it, do it right the first time,” my father’s wisdom echoed in my brain. Well, I fear I did not heed this fine sentiment when I wrote about Sarcophagus Rocks location in City of Rocks in “The Marker” Summer 2023. I was so excited to track someone else’s identification of where Sarcophagus Rock was, and wanting to believe it to be true, I found myself forcing the match.

This conclusion, believing the Devils Bedstead is the location of Sarcophagus rock has been stewing in my mind for over a year. I do not like it; it doesn’t seem correct. I realize I must return to the City of Rocks and do a thorough methodical search of all the stone formations to satisfy my curiosity.

Study shows me J. Goldsborough Bruff drew seven pictures that afternoon on August 29, 1849, between Kaiser’s Helmet and Pinnacle Pass, when he and the accompanying wagon train stopped for a break and marveled at the unique granite megaliths.

The trail dusty and the livestock sweltering under the searing sun on that August day, Bruff dismounted from his hard ridden horse for a much needed respite near the clear water of Circle Creek. A fresh cool drink was irresistible to the horses and oxen. They gathered around and drank their fill from the crystal stream. What could be more lovely than sitting in the middle of these tectonically formed shapes gazing at the wonders in this grass filled valley? It was a magical place. Folks swarmed around Kaiser’s Helmet and Treasure Rock, unhitching their oxen and allowing them to graze. Emigrants dug into their lunch baskets for a biscuit that had been grilled that morning. While others ate or attended to their chores, Bruff wrote the following statement in his notebook:

“We nooned among these curious monuments of nature. I dined hastily on bread & water, and while others rested, I explored and sketched some of these queer rocks. A group, on left of the trail, resembled gigantic fungii, petrified, (1. Kaiser’s Helmet and Monkey Rock) other clusters were worn in cells and caverns; (4. another corroded rock) and one, which contrasted with the size and h[e]ight of the adjacent rocks, seemed no larger than a big chest, was, to my astonishment, when close to it, quite large, hollow, with an arch’d entrance, and capable of containing a dozen persons. This, from its peculiar shape, I named the “Sarcophagus Rock.”ⁱ

Bruff’s drawings one(1) through six(6) are all within hundreds of feet of each other, with Pinnacle Pass (7) less than a mile away. Below is the order of J. Goldsborough Bruff’s sketches that he drew in his original notebook with pencil as he progressed through his day in the City of Rocks:

1. Singular formations of disintegrating granite. (Kaiser’s Helmet and Monkey Rock.)

2. Inside Sarcophagus Rock

3. Exterior view of Sarcophagus Rock.

4. Back view of Sarcophagus Rock.

5. Another corroded rock.

6. Headboard of the Devils Bedstead from the back side.

7. Pinnacle Pass.

It is important to keep in mind the order of his sketches in his primary notebook, because he drew them as he discovered them. His illustrating order compels me to find Sarcophagus Rock located somewhere after (1) Kaiser’s Helmet, and before (5) “another corroded rock.”

Bruff’s first (1) drawing in City of Rocks, he labeled Singular Formations of disintegrating granite; City of Rocks calls it Kaiser’s Helmet. In the lower left of his first sketch, he also drew Monkey rock. I have photographed the two showing how his drawings are somewhat similar, but definitely not exact when compared to the actual metamorphic formations. Bruff’s proportions are artistic, not precise.

Sketches two (2), three (3), and four (4) are inside Sarcophagus Rock and outside Sarcophagus Rock. I will address them later.

Bruff’s fifth (5) sketch is called “another corroded rock”. What Bruff calls corrosion is actually a tafoni, a honeycombed weathered hollow space created when salt air erodes the granite, salt air suspected to be blown in from The Great Salt Lake. In the City of Rocks, many boulders have this scooped out, flaked off appearance. Below is a close up of his original drawing coupled with a photo of a near match of a tafoni I found in the location of Treasure Rock.

Drawing six (6) gave me a headache to locate. I searched for 3 days looking for the rock that resembled this unlabeled drawing, knowing it had to be between Kaiser’s Helmet and Pinnacle Pass. The top of the fissures in this monument of stone slant to the left. Exactly the opposite slant of 99.9% of all the other rock formations in Circle Valley. How could the entire valley of granite projections emerging from the earth be slanted to the right and Bruff draws a clump of rocks slanted to the left? Tom mentioned that Bruff would have drawn something that stood out to him, something that would have caught his attention, something worth sketching. Bruff noted on the drawing that the stone mass was 200 feet high. Two hundred feet high? What could that be? The Devil’s bedstead was the only tall precipice in the whole lunch stop area standing erect, alone in the middle of the grass hill, and the most obvious. It would be hard to miss, but I had managed to do it. Upon further study of maps and terrain, we noted the main original emigrant trail traveled to the left behind the Devils Bedstead, not in front where we stood. Hopping on our bikes, we peddled on the foot path behind the Devils bedstead. Surprise, surprise, there it was, the fractures slanted left. The configuration matched Bruff’s drawing, as much as anything can match Bruff’s drawings.

Circle Valley is a plethora of shapes, pinnacles, obelisks, and hollowed out grottos. As J. Goldsborough Bruff gazed around looking for a shaded lunch spot in this treeless basin, either he or someone else had crawled under a cavernous boulder to escape the scorching noon day sun.

The elusive Sarcophgus rock was my final goal on this quest. It made enormous sense that Sarcophagus Rock would be by the trail where lunch was eaten. I surmized Its location had to be between Kaiser’s Helmet and the Devil’s Bedstead. Bruff drew them in that order in his “original” note book and that is the theory guiding me.

Where is this spaceship shaped rock where five men could comfortably relax in the cool shade, eating their bread, and joking with each other?

What was I missing, what was I not seeing. It had to be here.

I had looked at so many cracks in rocks, shapes of rocks, tafoni’s in rocks, that my eyes had crossed, and I had lost any perspective of what I was searching for. Tom, in his wisdom, evaluated the facts and patiently waited as I studied the many boulders near Kaiser’s Helmet and Treasure Rock from different angles.

Tom patiently waiting while I am on my quest to find Sarcophagus Rock. Where could that spaceship shaped rock be? Right behind him, hiding in plain sight perhaps? July 23, 2024

As I was about to accept defeat for the day, I turned my glance toward Tom. The rock he was standing in front of jumped out at me. The wedge shaped rock had been dwarfed by Treasure Rock. I had barely noticed this slab of stone the previous ten to fifteen times I walked past it, searching behind Treasure Rock for axel grease signatures smeared on its side left from travelers 175 years ago.

The opening gap to look under was belly crawling small and the rock appeared to be a solid mass of granite. Could there be a tafoni underneath it? If you were looking for a sarcophagus, this one definitely has the shape. Who would think of snaking under this coffin like rock Tom is standing next to, to see if it resembled a tomb inside? Oh, me, I did it, because it mostly looks like the Bruff drawing, and it is in the right lunch location where he drew his other sketches, and I was on a nonstop mission (some would say obsession). Seriously, it called me to slither on my belly and poke my head under the stone as I hoped five previous male emigrants had. There is a chamber in here, there is a large chamber in here, at least four feet high, and a possible bench, as in his sketch. This certainly resembles a tomb, a coffin, a sarcophagus. Could five men sit in here away from the blazing noon sun and devour their hard tack and jerky? Well yes, they could. Everything falls in order: sequence, location, size, shape, the interior bench, and the proximity to every other sketch Bruff made that afternoon. I am convinced this is THE elusive Sarcophagus Rock that I have been looking for.

Rocks, like clouds, have many shapes and often we see what we want to see. Did I find it? I believe so. Perhaps someone else could crawl under there and let me know what they think. Perhaps YOU could confirm my theory.

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You missed the Trails West Conference held Monday, June 10th through June 12th 2026 at the Carson Valley Inn in Minden, Nevada. There is one next year. The next Trails West Conference will be held in June 2027 at the Carson Valley Inn in Minden, Nevada. So you had better start planning ahead!

Here are some pictures of the activities.