Devil’s Tower National Monument, known as much for being featured in a movie as for its rare geology or being our first National Monument.
We stayed at the Devil’s Tower KOA located adjacent to the park entrance. It is a nice, but expensive, park. I guess location, location, location applies here. The park shows “Close Encounters” outdoors every night. Of course we went and enjoyed the movie.
Devil’s Tower was formed deep underground about 50 million years ago when magma pushed up but didn’t make it to the surface. It cooled and solidified, then the sedimentary layers eroded from above and around it until the igneous rock was left standing dramatically 867 feet from summit to base and 1,267 feet above the Belle Fourche River. Hundreds of vertical cracks make it one of the finest crack climbing locations in North America. Anyone can climb among the boulders at the base of the tower, but you need a permit to climb the tower itself.
We hiked all of the trails in the park. Our favorite was the Red Beds Trail. It is 2.8 miles long with more than 500 ft of elevation gain from the low point to the high point. It has great views of the red beds, the prairie, and of course the tower.
Devil’s Tower is considered sacred by Northern Plains Indians and indigenous people. June is a traditional sacred month and many Native Americans visit the monument and leave prayer cloths tied to trees. We saw many prayer clothes during our hiking.
This is a great stop if you are on your way from the Black Hills in South Dakota to the Yellowstone/Grand Teton area.
One thing we have noticed over our first several stops — everywhere we go we have been accompanied by yellow butterflies, our special reminder of our son Ryan. We have his cremains with us in the camper, and we are comforted to know he is also with us in spirit.