Devil's Tower - Wyoming

When we first arrived it was rainy & cloudy ... upon the end of our stay ... the sun shown and those are the pictures at the top. We took the Tower Trail 1.3 miles. The vista shown above is from that walk. The tower was created by igneous rock and was upthrust through sedimentary rock and later eroded.

As you approach the Tower, it dwarfs all the other landscape. Initially the was tower scaled in 1893, the tower now has 225 cracked climbing routes and is second most difficult crack climbing in the U.S. after Moab, UT. We went to a ranger's talk and he was one of the two 'climbing' rangers working at the tower. He was asked about the rescue off the top and he shared one that occurred in 1941, when a fellow parachuted onto the top. The plane that dropped him was supposed to have dropped a 10k rope ... the up drafts from the tower were too great and the pilot missed. The man was stuck at the top for 7 days.

Twenty-three Indian tribes believe this place to be sacred even today. As shown in one of the pictures, you see a yellow clothe ... they are prayer clothes placed on trees by Indians throughout the park.

I thought I would try to push a column of the rock back into place ... it didn't work ... go figure ... the ranger shared that none of the pillars have fallen in over 10k years ... we all laughed as how would anyone really know that ... oh well ... they're educated in that area and I'm not!

love to all from,

Carolyn & Beth