DEVIL'S TOWER - Mysterious, Sacred & Timeless Monolith of the Black Hills - Wyoming

 

DEVILS TOWER – WYOMING

"The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it."

Theodore Roosevelt

Devil's Tower was protected by President Theodore Roosevelt as the first ever National Monument
JDJ Photo

There are few places in the world that have captured the imagination of millions of people who have never visited. Devils Tower, located in the north west corner of the Black Hills in the State of Wyoming is one of those places. Ever since I saw the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” I have been fascinated by this place and I have always wanted to go there. I got my chance this August when we went up to Gillette, Wyoming to visit my granddaughter and it’s a good thing she lives up there because I probably would never have seen the tower otherwise because it is way off the beaten path. There is no easy way to get to the tower because it is extremely geographically isolated from any major population centers but having visited, I can tell you that it is totally worth your time and effort to put this place on your agenda if you are visiting Mount Rushmore or the Custer Battlefield. I was not sure what to expect as we drove east out of Gillette as the terrain of the high Wyoming plains and desert is quite monotonous and even ugly. We got off of Interstate 90 at the town of Moorcroft which should probably be called Lesscroft in my opinion and headed north on US ----. Eventually the plains became more grass covered and then we could see the tree covered Black Hills in the distance. The change from grassland to Ponderosa Pine Forest in this area is quite abrupt and the whole atmosphere changes once you enter the trees. All of a sudden we saw the tower far off on the horizon – at first a glimpse here and there and then when we turned off onto WYO 24, there it was, standing tall against the sky unlike anything in its vicinity or the World for that matter. We passed through the National Park Service gate house and then drove up to the parking area and walked up to the visitor center with the monolith looming over head rising precipitously above the trees. Devils Tower rises 867 feet straight up from its base which has a circumference of 1000 feet to an elevation of 5,112 feet above sea level. Hundreds of parallel cracks divide the tower into huge hexagonal columns. These columns, some as long as 600 feet, have 4, 5, 6 or 7 sides. Occasionally one of these columns gives way and adds to the pile of wrecked columns at the base of the tower. In 1875, after Custer’s 1874 Black Hills expedition, Colonel Richard Dodge led another expedition to confirm reports of Gold in the Black Hills. On this expedition Dodge and his men

Devil's Tower is an awesome sight as you approach it and it grows bigger on the horizon
JDJ Photo

saw the tower and were filled with awe. Dodge described the tower as “An immense obelisk of granite – its summit is in accessible to anything without wings. The sides are fluted and cored by the action of the elements and immense blocks of granite, split off from the column by frost, are piled in huge, irregular mounds about its base.” Dodge went on to state that explorers, even those accustomed to climbing difficult crags could only look up at the tower in despair. Dodge claimed that the local Indians referred to the mountain as “Bad Gods Tower,” a name which Dodge modified to “Devils Tower.” Dodge concluded that the tower was one of the most remarkable peaks in this or any Country. Many Native American Tribes hold the Tower sacred and have different names for this unusual place, the most common of which is the Arapaho name” Bears Tipi”. Other names associated with the tower are Bear Lodge (Cheyenne), Bears House (Crow) and a Loft on a Rock (Kiowa). It is said that Bears Tipi was the home base for the seven council fires. Bears Tipi was a place of worship where one could go to fast and connect with the great everywhere spirit Waken Tanka and for centuries many elders were buried around Bears Tipi. The lush grasses on the banks of the Belle Fourche River at the base of the Tower and the abundance of firewood in the area provided the tribal villages with sustainment and shelter from the brutal winter winds of the plains. These first peoples, mystified by the Tower, passed down numerous origin stories of the Tower through oral traditions. One of the most widely known is the Kiowa Legend that goes like this: One day seven little girls were playing at a distance from the village and were chased by some bears. The girls ran towards the village and when the bears were about to catch them, they jumped to a low rock about 3 feet in height. One of them prayed to the rock “take pity

According to Kiowa Legend, the Bear's Claws scraped and marked the Tower
JDJ Photo

on us rock – save us.” The rock heard them and began to elongate itself upward pushing the girls higher and higher away out of the reach of the bears. When the bears jumped at them they scratched the rock, they broke their claws and fell back upon the ground. The rock continued to push the children upward into the sky while the bears jumped at them. The children are still in the sky – seven little stars in a group (The Pleiades) According to the legend the marks of the bears claws can still be seen upon the rock. Devils Tower and Paha Sapa (The Black Hills) in general, were disputed territories that were fought over by numerous plains, mountain and desert tribes including the Sioux, Crow, Kiowa, Arapaho, Apache, Cheyenne, and others. An elder named Old Bull stated that there was a war between the Crow and the Sioux near Bears Tipi and 10 Crow were killed. As you walk through the trees around the tower it is interesting to think about conflicts that were never documented that no doubt took place to establish dominion over this mystical place. Since prehistoric times, this tower has confounded and fascinated all those who have come in contact with it from Native peoples to the fur trappers, explorers, Soldiers, pioneers, ranchers and now the 400,000 people who visit the park annually. Devils Tower was so unique that President Theodore Roosevelt set the Tower and 1,367 acres around it aside as the first ever National Monument. Viewed from any angle, this granite sentinel rising from 3,850 feet at the level of the Belle Fourche River to its peak at 5,112 feet is a stunning, other worldly sight to behold. Many have been fascinated by the challenge of climbing this rock and it is unknown if the Native Americans scaled the peak or if they refused to do so because the mountain was either cursed or very sacred depending on the various legends and oral traditions. The Pioneer settlers of the area were however fascinated by the prospect of conquering this mountain and one, Mr. William Rogers, determined to get to the summit, with help from a friend, built a 350 ladder into a crack in the tower. Then in 1893 while a thousand people looked on, Rogers scaled the ladder and reached the summit. Not to be outdone, his wife Linne Rogers climbed it in 1895 making her the first documented woman to climb the tower. Some sections of this ladder are still in place and you can see them with the naked eye. Crazy to think that these people had the courage to climb this rock on a rickety ladder! And how terrifying it must have been. Climbing the Tower today is no easy task. For experienced climbers it takes 4-6 hours and all the necessary equipment including anchors, hand chalk, cams, chocks, belay and very long ropes 200-240 feet are well utilized. Sadly, 6 climbers have died attempting the ascent since 1937 but when you consider that 5,000 people, utilizing 220 distinct climbing routes conquer the summit each year, that is a remarkably low fatality number for something so dangerous. Unbelievably, a climber named Todd Skinner scaled the mountain without ropes in 18 minutes in 1980! As you walk along the Tower trail you can watch climbers working their ropes as they ascend or descend the peak.

It takes expert skill and training to climb Devil's Tower - JDJ Photo

An even more ridiculous feat was attempted in October of 1941. George Hopkins engaged in a stunt where he parachuted out of a plane and landed on top of Devils tower. He was elated at his safe landing but was dismayed when the wind blew his 1000-foot rope, his only means of descent, over the edge of the tower. It was his only way down. Hopkins paced the 1.5-acre sagebrush covered Tower top for 6 days, surviving off of air dropped supplies while a rescue was organized. 7.000 spectators watched as Jack Durrance and his technical climbing team brought Hopkins down to safety. After the ordeal Hopkins exclaimed “I’ll bet I counted the big boulders on that ____mountain peak a thousand times. I gave em all names you couldn’t print” If you visit the Tower today you will find a couple large parking lots, a visitor center, and the gem of the park, the 1.3-mile Tower Trail which makes a loop through the Ponderosa and boulders all the way around the base of the tower. Along this trail the flanks of the Tower base provide commanding views of the beautiful Belle Fourche River valley. When I walked along this trail, looking up through the trees at the giant rock rising to the sky, I could understand the profound spiritual resource that this Tower and the surrounding woods provide to the Native Americans. I also thought about how the Tower was the landmark from the 1977 Steven Spielberg film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Devils Tower was the site of the final climactic alien encounter and contact point. The nearby KOA Campground still shows the movie nightly. Richard Dreyfuss, the main character, builds a massive model in his front room of the tower and then sees the tower on the evening news. In a quiet area near a giant fallen boulder, I picked up a grapefruit sized chunk of rock in my hand and it was very dense. Blew my mind to consider how immensely heavy one of the thousands of giant columns that form the tower would be. The rock was a light grey / tan color with numerous clear quartzite crystals embedded. The rock chunk had black, light grey, orange / yellow lichens, and large pale green patches of leafy lichens. Could the billions of quartz crystals in the Tower have some sort of mysterious powers that could be a magnet or beacon to extra-terrestrial life forms? Who knows. As I walked around the Tower, I noticed numerous cloth strips of different bright colors tied to the trees. Turns out these are the most common form of modern American Indian ceremonial connection to the Tower and they are called prayer cloths. These cloths are the physical, symbolic representations of prayers made by American Indian people as part of their ceremonies. Some are strips of cloth, others are bundles. According to a sign on the site, the colors used represent the four directions, each with its own significance. I also learned that it is not respectful to photograph or disturb the prayer cloths so I if you

Devil's Tower as seen through the trees on the north side of the Tower Trail
JDJ Photo

ever visit, keep that in mind. Along the Tower trail I noticed the dark green of the Ponderosa with its reddish bark, thick bright green grasses, and the grey Tower looming in a blue sky with large building white clouds. Several large raptors were swirling around the tower riding the breeze. Looking up at the giant rock columns and the jumbled piles of boulders at their base made me wonder how big the tower used to be. A walk along this trail is fascinating and because the mountains and plains converge here there are over 150 bird species that have been noticed. Hawks, bald and golden eagles, woodpeckers, turkey vulture, mountain bluebird, wild turkey, and black billed magpie are just a few of the species you may see. We also noticed several white-tailed deer and a fascinating black tailed prairie dog town. According to park literature, porcupine, chipmunks, and cotton tail rabbits are also common.    The park is open year-round and I can only imagine what the stars would look like above and behind this mountain in the dark sky far from civilization or the wondrous scene a fresh coat of snow on the tower would present. I truly enjoyed my visit to this fascinating place and I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves nature and appreciates the majesty of the wilderness.

The Monolith is ever present through the trees as you walk the Tower Trail at Devil's Tower National Monument in Wyoming - JDJ Photo