Day 44 Devils Tower

My destination for the Day was the Devils Tower in eastern Wyoming, a stop that was recommended by my friend, Bill Brown. Pop Quiz # 2: Can you name the Hollywood reference to the Devils Tower?

My journey on the day took me eastward in Wyoming through many state forests along winding roads, with similar scenery to yesterday. At one point, I passed through a small town called Ten Sleep, along a river of the same name. I stopped for a dog walk and gas, and on the wall of the gas station was an explanation of the town’s name. In past years, there were two large Indian camps, one near present day Casper, and one near Bridger, Montana, and Ten Sleep was near the middle of the two. The Indians would measure distances by the number of “sleeps” on the journey between two points, and Ten Sleep was “ten sleeps” from each of the two larger camps.

From there I entered the large Big Horn National Forest, which included an area called the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area. I turned off towards the Loaf Mountain Overlook and took the picture below. I was in this national forest for many miles, and the scenery was stunning. I also passed by Meadowlark Lake, which was created by a dam constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1936.

As I entered the Devils Tower National Monument, I had to unhook the camper some two miles before the visitor center, which was directly across the road from the tower. The 50-million-year-old tower consists of molten rock which was injected between rock layers. The strangely perfect shapes along the sides of the tower are the result of uniformly-arranged cracks which appeared during the cooling of the volcanic magma. There is no trail up to the top, but the Park Service allows certified rock climbers to register and climb the structure.

In 1906 Congress passed the Antiquities Act which empowered the President to bestow national monument status on federally owned lands that that contain historic landmarks, or historic or pre-historic structures. President Theodore Roosevelt quickly invoked the act and designated Devils Tower as the nation’s first national monument that year.

I left the tower and drove for an hour and a half through dirt roads to my campsite at the Cook Lake Recreation Area in the Big Horn Forest. When I arrived at the park and opened my truck bed, it was full of dirt dust from the drive. Otherwise, the campsite was very nice with a good view of the lake.

Posted photos include two mountain scenes from Big Horn Forest, Meadowlark Lake, the view from Loaf Mountain Overlook, Devils Tower, a view of the valley from the trail around the tower, and the Cook Lake.

The Pop Quiz Answer: Devils Tower was the landing site for extraterrestrial visitors in the 1977 film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.