![]() The National Park Service maintains a voluntary climbing shut-down for the month of June, out of respect for the cultural significance of the site. Devils Towers is awe inspiring, even without the pop culture baggage. The trails are fun to walk, and you might catch yourself imagining sinister helicopters dropping sleep gas on your comrades. ![]() Little specks on the Tower turn out to be climbers, slowly ascending among the vertical furrows. The small log-cabin visitor center provides details about the site, and helpful rangers to answer questions.Ĭasual visitors walk a bit up the trail to the boulder field at the base of the Tower, where the size of everything becomes more apparent. They have learned to hold still for close-ups.Ĭontinuing on, visitors wind around to the "back" and park near the base of the Tower. ![]() Irresistibly cute varmints pop out of burrows and scamper from hole to hole. After paying the park entry fee, travelers stop along a stretch of road to see Prairie Dog Town. Inside the National Monument, the Hollywood extraterrestrial connection is completely ignored. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is played each summer night, starting at dusk. The far end of the parking lot abuts an outdoor theater of plastic chairs and a large projection TV in a cabinet. Aside from hundreds of mini-DTs and DT-branded swag, the inventory includes a mass of space alien items.ĭevils Tower Trading Post - plenty of alien swag.Īcross the street, businesses affiliated with the Devils Tower KOA offer even more souvenirs, food and snack options. There's not a chance of that happening at the Devils Tower Trading Post. Near the entrance a couple of large gift shops draw in tourists worried that they might run out of Devils Tower souvenirs if they wait until later. Anyone scrambling above the boulder field at the base of the Tower needs a climbing permit granted in advance.Įvery Devil's Tower adventure starts outside the Park, with scenic views of its aberrant shape from all directions. 'Devils Tower' instead of 'Devil's Tower')."ĭevils Tower has remained a popular destination for rock climbers, who enjoy the 4-6 hour thrills of climbing the Tower's vertical faces. The official NPS website notes: "A clerical error resulted in the lost possessive apostrophe (i.e. In 1906, President Teddy Roosevelt (no stranger to killing bears) preserved the site by turning it into America's first national monument. The Great Spirit protected the husband and his six brothers by growing the rock out of the ground so that they had the high ground and killed the bear.ĭevils Tower trail - prayer bundle advisory. The Indian tale goes that a bear had a love affair with a brave's wife and turned her into a bear. In the visitors center, there's a painting of the Cheyenne "Legend of Devils Tower," depicting a giant monster bear clawing up the side of the Tower. Indians called it Mato Tipila, Bear's Tipi and Bear Lodge. Each of a half dozen Indian tribes has their own story about its origins. is filled with mountains and buttes, but Devils Tower has a memorable shape, sproinging up out of relatively flat surroundings of plains and forest.įor this reason, it figured prominently in the lore of Northern Plains Indians, who considered it a sacred site for thousands of years. The origin of its furrowed columns is not totally settled by geologists. Considered an igneous intrusion, molten granite-like rock (phonolite porphyry) pushed up from a volcano 50 million years ago, then surrounding sedimentary rock wore away between 5 and 10 million years ago (one sign places it at only one or two million years ago). For whichever reason, about 400,000 visitors make the pilgrimage each year.ĭevils Tower is 867 ft. After 1977, Devils Tower was known around the world, and forever entangled in the invisible Ley-lines of space alien landings, government conspiracies, and the poor sculpting properties of mashed potatoes.
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