Our time in Wyoming was brief but beautiful, and so I think this short jaunt through the state warrants its own post.
Leaving South Dakota was certainly a bittersweet moment. I’d absolutely fallen in love with Custer State Park, and could have spent another week relaxing under the trees and exploring the trails and stunning alpine lakes. But our first stop in Wyoming was one I had been very excited for - Devil’s Tower!
My dad and I have driven cross-country twice, and when I was 11, we made a stop here on our trip. I remember it being extremely cool, this odd shaped towering rock looming up above the land and ending abruptly with a flat top. Do you ever learn something in your childhood and, for some reason, it sticks with you and you always wonder a bit if it’s true? That was me with Devil’s Tower - I was convinced 11 year old me had learned that this was the inside of a volcano that froze up as a pool inside it’s rocky housing, and overtime, the outside crumbled and this was what remained. I was excited to see Devil’s Tower again, but also was looking forward to finding out if my childhood memories about its origin were correct.
As we headed towards Devil’s Tower National Park, coming down Route 14 you could see this odd rock jutting up above the landscape 10 miles out. My excitement grew with every mile and finally, we wound our way up the road to the Visitor’s Center and the base of Devil’s Tower!
It’s hard to describe exactly what makes seeing this monument in person so fascinating. The texture of the rock is puzzling and beautiful, long rocky columns that line the base. The fact that it looms so high above your head, 867 feet from base to summit, yet culminates in a broad flat top. The way that it looks like it bubbled up out of the earth before stretching itself long, reaching towards the sky.
I love the Lakota legend about the origin of Devil’s Tower. A group of young girls were out playing, when they were spotted and pursued by several giant bears. The girls climbed onto a rock and prayed to the Great Spirit to save them, and in response, the Great Spirit elevated the rock into the sky, above the reach of the bears. The bears attempted to climb up, their great claws cleaving deep scratches into the sides, resulting in the marks we see today. I feel like this legend encapsulates the strange and beautiful nature of this butte.
The truth of the geology is that Devil’s Tower is a “igneous intrusion”. This means that it was formed when magma from beneath the Earth’s surface pushed its way through the crust into an existing layer of rock – in this case, sedimentary rock. As the magma rose past the crust, it cooled into mostly hexagonal columns 20 feet wide and up to 600 feet tall. But some of these giant columns are 4-, 5-, or even 7-sided! Over time, the softer sedimentary rock eroded, leaving behind just the igneous rock cooled as it came up through the surface. This erosion will continue with the sedimentary that surrounds the base of the tower, which means that over time, more and more of the inner Devil’s Tower will be revealed. So I guess 11 year old Emily wasn’t entirely wrong about the way this oddity was formed!
With such an interesting structure caused by cooling magma, it’s no wonder this was where the aliens wanted to land in Close Encounters of the Third Kind! Neither of us had seen the movie, and we absolutely had to give it a watch after our visit. The surreal vibes of this butte jutting up and rising over the neighboring flat landscape sure did feel otherworldly.
We enjoyed gaping up at this gorgeous rock formation and lunching in its shadow. Since dogs aren’t allowed on any of the trails, we didn’t get to do much exploring, but the views from the Visitor’s Center and the travel up and down the driveway afforded views that were definitely worth the visit. Oh, and to top it all off, we stopped by the prairie dog field on our way out and saw a few of the adorable little critters popping out to say hello!
There wasn’t too much else we did as we headed south through Wyoming. Because we had extended our time at Custer and had a deadline to be in Colorado, we really only experienced a drive through this state. Although we did end on some stunning boondocking in Vedauwoo. It was worth bundling up on that chilly night to go outside and look at the stars. We saw the Milky Way arching across the sky, and even caught a few meteors at the tail end of the Perseid shower. It was a gorgeous night sipping warming whiskey under the stars and pondering when our extraterrestrial visitors were finally going to make their landing at the magnificent Devil’s Tower.
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