Today we went to the Devils Tower. But not without a false start. We left our campground around 9:30 this morning, stopped for gas in Sundance, and headed out Hwy 14 toward the Devils Tower (for some reason they do not put an apostrophe in the name, even though it seems to be a possessive not a plural). As we drove we realized that what began as an overcast sky was changing to serious fog. We finally decided maybe it was too early so we returned to town and dropped into a couple of hardware stores for some items we needed.



We set out again on Hwy 14, again encountered heavy fog, but decided to go ahead and see what we found when we got there. It’s about a 30 mile drive. We knew there would be problems when we saw turnouts, clearly for picture taking, and we couldn’t see anything. Finally we arrived at the Tower, took a few pictures through the fog, and set out for a town to the north for lunch. We found a deli that served big thick sandwiches – we each brought home half of our sandwich for supper. Then we drove back to see how the fog was doing.






There is a trail that is about 1.3 miles long and goes around the Tower. When we started on the trail the fog was lifting. By the time we finished the sun was trying to come out. We both got some good pictures from that trail.

Overall it was a satisfying trip. The Devils Tower lived up to my expectations. It's really impressive.



One of the things I enjoyed was seeing the Indian prayer cloths tied to the trees around the base of the Tower. This is a sacred area to the Indians; the Lakotas call it Bear Lodge and resent the name change to Devils Tower. The Indians spend the month of June in religious celebrations around the Tower, and they are the ones who tie the prayer cloths to the trees. There have been attempts to stop people from climbing the Tower during that time out of consideration for the Indian religion, but lawsuits ensued so now people are only encouraged not to climb then.