We had lovely weather for our full day at Devils Tower, Wyoming. It is raining and blowing right now (8:45pm MDT), but we had pleasant temps and blue skies most of the day.
We hiked both of the trails that go around the base of the Tower, and then a piece of a third trail. All very pretty. Total hike of about 5 miles. I took many many photos and it is hard to choose which to show, but here are my choices.
View, from the base trail, of the rock rubble that has sloughed off the tower. The tower is an igneous intrusion (as opposed to a volcanic core - i.e., it never was a volcano, only magma that failed to reach the earth's surface). As erosion occurred over the eons, the softer materials washed away, and left the hard core revealed.
A wonderful balanced rock encountered on the longer trail around the base.
Beautiful view of the red sedimentary rock formation. The Belle Fourche River flows right beside the rocks.
On one of the trails through a beautiful meadow.
The best view of the tower was from a little distance on another trail with a beautiful meadow in the foreground.
Not sure what this flower is but there were many.
A sculpture by the Japanese artist Junkyu Muto, of Italian marble with a base of igneous rock from the Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota. Its title is The Circle of Sacred Smoke, reminding people that 20 tribes of Indians consider the tower to be a sacred place. This is one of the most beautiful contemporary sculptures I have seen. It was created to frame the tower in just this way. This is over near the prairie dogs, and we missed it yesterday.
The nice CCC-built Visitor Center.
Inside the visitor center. The picture depicts the Indian legend of the bear on the tower who chased a family up to the top of the tower, and they became the moon and the stars (something like that).
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