Devil’s Tower is in northeastern Wyoming. The trip from Buffalo was pretty uneventful-lots of prairie, big sky and ranch land.
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| The Wyoming prairie is surprisingly beautiful. |
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| And, not all dry |
Devil’s Tower, itself, rises abruptly out of that kind of geography.
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| Our first look from the road |
We learned that about 50 million years ago molten magma was forced up into sedimentary rock above and cooled underground. As it cooled, it contracted and fractured into columns. Erosion, over the years, exposed it to how it appears today.
The campground is lovely. We have a view of the Tower in front of us. We were a little disappointed in that dogs are not allowed on any of the trails here. So we visited the interpretive center and gazed at the tower......
We learned that the Northern Plains Indians here are not happy with the name nor the fact that it is a very popular climbing area. We respect their opinions about this and will try to remember to call it Bear Lodge. It was named Devil’s Tower by a Colonel Dodge in 1875 who incorrectly translated the native words for the Tower. There is a famous native legend about a bear chasing 7 sisters up a tree. When the sisters prayed to be saved, the tree got taller and taller until the girls became the Pleiades. The columns of the Tower appear to have bear claw marks where the bear chased the young girls. The Tower today is used for sacred ceremonies by many Plains Indian tribes: the Lakota, the Arapahoe, the Cheyenne, the Shoshone, the Kiowa and Crow.
We entertained ourselves that night by watching "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (filmed here) on Jim's computer.
Boo helped me map out where to go next.
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| A big help! |
We decided against the Black Hills because we had been there before and wanted to experience something different. We really didn't want any more of eastern Wyoming, as we knew it looked pretty flat and boring (at least on the maps). We had our eyes fixed on the Casper area, where we would scout out a good place for Jim to fish. But, we still had to go through quite a bit of that flat Wyoming landscape in the eastern part of the state.
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| Lots of big sky, ranches, grasses, sage and cattle |
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Oil wells of all kinds were everywhere. The
famous Powder River Basin is here. |
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Teapot Dome
We couldn't remember what this all was about
but looked it up as we drove by and remembered
that it was a bribery scandal during the Harding
Administration. Priority was given to an oil
company without proper bidding for the job.
Did I remember right? |
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| Much of the area is quite beautiful. |
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| Love that sky! |
It was surprising beautiful driving through the Thunder Basin National Grasslands. This area was part of the Dust Bowl of the 1930's. European immigrants moving west to claim land mistakenly thought they could farm here as they did in the east. Deep plowing, exposing soil to the dry winds, and overgrazing of livestock caused erosion and the eventual elimination of native grasses which held moisture in the ground and kept the winds from wreaking havoc on the land. When severe drought hit this area in the 30's, it was the last straw for many people who couldn't hold onto their land and left the area. The government responded to this crisis by implementing programs for soil conservation and relief for the victims of the drought. Eventually, the US bought much of the land and began using it for forage of livestock and for garnering its vast mineral resources. This area is interesting to see on a map as it is owned in pieces by federal, state and private interests. It is wild trying to distinguish the government from the private lands here when you are trying to find a camping spot. Although we didn't camp here, we have camped in the Pawnee Grasslands in Colorado. It is always a delightful experience as this kind of land attracts lots of interesting wildlife.
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