We left Sturgis, South Dakota, and headed for Devil's Tower,
Wyoming.
Bicycling on the interstates is permitted in South Dakota
but I don't think you'll see us biking there.
The distance between Sturgis and Devil's Tower is only about
77 miles and before we knew it, we were entering Wyoming.
We headed north at Exit 185 on Wyoming 24 for about 25 or so
miles.
At over 800 feet tall, we kept looking for Devil's Tower
over the next hill and eventually and we did.
We stayed at the Devil's Tower View RV Park which was about
1.5 miles away from the park. After
getting set up and eating some lunch, we drove over to the park. Our entrance fee was $0 (rather than $10) with
our America the Beautiful pass.
If you remember the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Devil's Tower is the place
where Richard Dreyfuss and several others were drawn to after experiencing an
interaction with with extraterrestrials visiting Earth.
To several tribes of the American Indians, the tower was
considered sacred and some called it Bear Lodge. In fact, during the month of June, the park
asks that climbers refrain from climbing the Tower out of respect for the
Indians. However, it is not a policy
that is enforced as we saw several climbers when we hiked around the Tower.
The name Devil's Tower came from when in 1875 Col. Richard
Irving Dodge who lead an expedition to the Tower received a misinterpretation
(Bad God's Tower) from an Indian interpreter.
Col. Dodge called it "Devil's Tower" and the Tower has been
called that ever since.
Devil's Tower was made America's first national monument by
President Teddy Roosevelt in 1906.
I started snapping pictures as soon as we got through the
gate...
and continued taking pictures for the our entire hike around
the Tower and even after we got back home.
It is one of the most unusual formations we have ever seen. To me, it looks like God took a big clump of
clay and then ran fork up all the sides of it.
The 1.3 mile trail around the base of the tower was a very
good paved trail.
The Tower is just an amazing thing to look at.
Only registered climbers are permitted past the boulder
field.
The Forest Service periodically has controlled burns to help
the forest continue to grow and thrive around the Tower.
Every few yards, we would stop, look up and get a completely
different perspective of the Tower.
Some of the columns looked like they could break off at any
time..
...but according to the information in the Visitor Center,
there has not been any major rocks to break off since the Tower became a
monument in 1906.
We found this tree that was holding up a huge boulder. :)
As we walked around the south side of the tower, there were
some beautiful views of the surround ranges.
We could even see the campground where we were staying.
Part of the hiking trail came close enough to the Tower that
you could touch it.
We also saw some climbers on this side of the Tower.
As we came back to where we started on the west side of the
Tower, the columns appeared to swoop down at the bottom.
And the boulder field was much wider here.
Even as we approached the end of the hike, we kept looking
back up at the Tower...
...and continued to be amazed...
...and the beautiful surrounding hills and ranges.
As we left the park, we saw these red walls running along
the river...
...and another perspective of Devil's Tower.
Back at our campsite, I took these pictures of the canyon
behind the campground.
We had some pretty good views of the Tower from our campsite
too.
Because I took so many pictures of the Tower, I put together
this slideshow for you to enjoy all the different views we saw of Devil's
Tower.
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