Devil's Tower

Saturday was a very nice day since I managed to get to all three sites I had planned on visiting during the weekend. Therefore on Sunday I decided to set the course towards Devil's Tower in North-Eastern Wyoming. I had been debating for months whether to go there or not. It's basically "just a rock" and far far away from home. However, now that I had already done most of the trip, I went for it. It's only about two and a half hours away from Mt. Rushmore but in the wrong direction so I knew that the trip back wasn't going to be much fun.

The daylight savings had just ended (a week later than in Europe) and even though this meant I could sleep one more hour before getting up, it also meant that the sunset was an hour earlier. Driving in pitch black is not my idea of fun especially after Saturday when I saw tons of deer on the road during the day and some more after driving back from Mt. Rushmore to the hotel in total darkness.

The first glimpse of the tower with the max zoom on my camera when approaching from the East

The restroom in the visitor center had a scoreboard for the elections. I'm not sure who this Obomma guy is but he doesn't seem to have much support in Wyoming.

 

You can take a quick walk around the tower if you so choose. It was a cold, rainy and a windy day but having come so far there was no question whether I'd do that. The quick walk turned out to be not so quick after all since this just-a-rock is ginormous. Its summit is 1,267 feet (386 m) above the surrounding terrain and it takes a while to get around especially when you're taking a million pictures along the way. It is a popular rock climbing destination although in this weather no one was stupid enough to try.

The foot of the tower is filled with massive boulders that the erosion process has carved from the tower. They might look like pebbles in the picture but that's only because of the giant seen in the background

This is a sacred place for many Native American tribes and many visitors leave prayer cloths in the surrounding trees

Here you can see the column structure. How does that happen?

Seriously, how does that happen?

Oh, ok. Wait... what?

Some of the stake ladder used by William Rogers and Willard Ripley when they first climbed the tower in 1893

There's also some red stuff close by but meh... seen so much of that in Colorado already :)

Why did the turkey cross the road? The upcoming Thanksgiving Day?