The main corridor of Rock House runs about two hundred feet through the cliff, with a ceiling some twenty-five feet high and natural arched windows casting bands of daylight across the sandy floor. Small recesses in the rear wall are traditionally interpreted as cooking ovens used by Native American families, with shallow floor troughs said to have collected drinking water. The cave also carries a colorful frontier reputation — locals once knew it as Robbers Roost — and a storyteller's account of its outlaw years, and of the sixteen-room hotel that once stood near the trailhead, plays for visitors who linger inside. Cool, dim, and glowing at the windows, this is the most cave-like space on the tour and a favorite with kids.
The light is the first thing that gets you. Those great arched windows throw slabs of sun clear across the floor, and the whole corridor glows like the inside of a lantern. Feel the air, too — cooler in here, with the mineral smell of damp stone. You're standing in a room about two hundred feet long, with a ceiling some twenty-five feet overhead and the cliff itself for walls. Walk it slow, end to end. The soft sand under your boots is the cliff's crumbly middle layer, ground down to dust — this floor is made of everything the water carried off to build the room. Along the rear wall, look for the small recesses cut back into the stone, each about the size of an oven, because tradition says that's just what they were. The old interpretation goes like this: Native American families built fires in those hollows, let the rock bank the heat, and baked in them, while the little troughs worn into the floor caught drinking water seeping through the sandstone. Nobody can prove every detail now, but people cooking and sheltering in this corridor rings true — the work of peoples whose nations continue today. Now run your eyes along the windows one more time, because the view works both ways — and over the years this room has kept more kinds of company than you'd ever guess from a Sunday afternoon crowd. Stay put about thirty seconds, and Boone will tell you who else has called this stone house home. It's a story worth standing still for.