Devils Tower

From Sundance Wyoming to the Devils Tower National Monument is only 30 miles away.
We were warned that the parking lot was small and filled early in the day.  By the time we walked around the tower, we could see that there was a line of vehicles waiting for someone to leave so they could to enter.

The tower was formed by magma moving to the surface but not becoming a volcano.  Over time the area around the magma eroded away leaving the tower standing alone.

The tower is 1,267 feet tall.  Twenty native tribes consider this a sacred place.  To some of the tribes, the Tower is known as Bear Lodge or Bear House. Tribes would send members to travel to the tower to pray.  It was declared America's first national monument in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt.

The plan is to hike two of the trails that loop around the tower.  The outer trail 2.8 miles and the inner trail is 1.3 miles.  As you can imagine almost all the tourists take the shorter trail since it is paved and ADA accessible.  On our hike around the outer mountain trail, we only passed 8 people.  I have no idea how many we passed on the inner trail.  Including the access trails, we hiked 4.7 miles.

The tower really is unique.  Standing next to something so different from anything else you can visit in the country is amazing.

We noticed several climbers working their way up the tower.  Two were almost to the very top later in our hike.

We did see some wildlife.  A couple of Red Squirrels and a Deer with her two Fawns.

We enjoyed our visit to the tower but did not have a close encounter of the 3rd or any other kind.  Tonight we will NOT be having mashed potatoes.  I would be WAY too tempted to act out a scene from the Close Encounters and that would not be good.