Day 10 – Devils Tower then North Dakota

Leaving by 8:00am this morning (Friday 6/9/2017) so we can get to Devils Tower before the larger groups of people show up.  On the way we are on back roads and encounter barns of all things. 

The landscape has definitely changed as you can see from this picture.  We are in more rolling hills, yes there are still some flatlands which are still used for a crop of some sort, but there is a change in the terrain. 

Speaking of different things we see on the landscape, here is a snow fence.  Now there was a truck, a big Chevy four door, and the fence was almost twice as tall as the truck.  They must have some pretty strong winds to need a fence like this.

This isn’t our first look of Devils Tower, but it is our first best look.  We are high up on WY-24 when we got this view and had to stop.  We’ll be closer when we reach the site, but we do not know if we’ll have another big view of the tower standing there by itself.

While I was taking the “big” picture of Devils Tower, Carmen sees this entrance to one of the many ranches that dot the area.  There is a carved bear on the top, crossing bar and a bear cub on each of the vertical beams.  Now how great would this be coming in and out of your ranch, seeing Devils Tower and your ranch entrance?

Before reaching Devils Tower, we stopped at an information plaque describing the geological landmark.  Also note at the end where in 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt quickly used the Antiquities Act to make this the Nation’s first National Monument.  Bully!

Nearly at the tower and once again at a high elevation as compared to the rest of the area, you can see the varied landscape.  The ranch below seems to use the further field for haying. 

After many different views of Devils Tower, we finally reach the National Monument and after paying our entrance fee (actually we have life-time passes), we begin our drive along the park road to the tower.  Before driving very long though we come to a prairie dog colony and have to stop to take some pictures.  We won’t bore you with all of the pictures, but I can’t help to show you at least one of the pictures Carmen took.

At the Tower, we are on the west side and the sun is shining into our face and any pictures are heavily shadowed.  So we decided to walk the trail around the tower.  The Tower is held sacred to many of the American Indians and there are a number of prayer bundles and prayer cloths (like this one) hanging from different trees around the trail, like this one

One of the views Carmen gets as we begin to come around from the shaded side of the tower.  You can clearly see the hexagonal columns formed when the magma forming the tower cooled.

Speaking of Carmen, here she is after taking a picture and ready to tell me not to take her picture.  Ha, like that’s going to happen!

All around us is a forest of Ponderosa pines and there was a deer just beyond this small clearing.  By the time I got my camera up to take the picture, someone was trucking up the lower trail making noise and it scooted.  So I missed it, the deer is somewhere there but I can’t find it.  Anyway, you can see the trail we are taking around the tower gives us good views of he tower and also the forested area that surrounds it.

Here is Carmen again with a good view of the Tower from the trail we are on.  We just finished reading about the top of the tower which is rounded rather than flat and is about the size of a football field. 

You can clearly see the columns from the close-up Carmen got of the Tower.  Some of the columns have broken off and the upper portions remain in place.  A lone Turkey Buzzard flies by as Carmen took the picture.  There was a hawk flying around, but when we would try to get a picture of it, the hawk would land somewhere.  Oh well, that’s how it goes.

When we were about half way around the tower, we came to a section that had burned.  You can see, from Carmen’s picture that some of the trees have burned completely while others did not.  Also the grasses are now very lush. 

So we are about three-quarters of the way around (we went counter-clockwise around the tower) and come upon this view.  Fantastic!  You can clearly see where the magma came from the left and right sides, where it is wide, and tried to push its way up through the narrower section. 

But wait, we read this information plaque about how in 1893 two local ranchers climbed the tower using wooden stake ladders.  So we were looking for it and you can see it in the picture before this one.  Here is the ladder, the top part anyway, on the right side, between the third and fourth column from the right.  In the picture before this, it is just below the top “grassy” area and just to the left of the second wide shadowed column from the right.  Good Luck!

We have nearly completed our trek around Devils Tower and come to an open area where we can see the surrounding countryside.  We can see the hay field below that looks to have already been cut and bailed. 

We have seen various flowers and decided to at least show you one of them.  Mind you we have no idea what this flower is named.

We finished our trek around and some people were looking up towards the tower.  Now this side is still in the shade because we are on the western side, but someone pointed out two climbers.  We got this picture of the climbers.  All I can say is that I don’t know if I could do that split now while standing on the floor let alone climbing.  Oh the top guy is about half way up the tower.

We leave Devils Tower National Monument and happy the President Roosevelt made this a National Monument.  One last look at Devils Tower before it is gone from sight.  This is the hay field we could see when we were hiking around the tower trail.

Back on the road again, we are headed to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota and will take the route bringing us up through South Dakota along US-85 then into North Dakota.  As we pass one of the small towns along the way we see this “Fine Antiques” shop.  Notice that they are opened 23 hours. 

Here is one of the ranches we have been passing.  I think this one had an established date of 1893.

We have passed quite a number of ranches all with varying barns.  This one near the Black Hills National Forest actually looked more modern and kept up.  Nearby we also read about Custer’s 1874 Expedition to the Black Hills and the discovery of gold had wide reaching effects on the area. 

We are out of Wyoming and into South Dakota north of the Black Hills area and again the terrain has become varied.  We begin to see buttes within the prairie floor and grasslands, after all the Black Hills are just south of us. 

Ha!  I knew we would see one along the way and Carmen was able to get this picture of a Pronghorn.  It’s not facing us, but we almost get a good side view of it.

We have seen some very different names for towns on our trip.  But this is confusing.  We are told that they are not Buffalo, they are Bison.  So is this the same town with two different ways to get there or where they confused also?

As we get closer to the North Dakota the surrounding landscape continues to build on our west side.  The east side remains having mostly grasslands.

Sheep!  Our first view of sheep and I guess this rancher never watched any of the old westerns where the cattle ranchers drove the sheep herders out.  Got wool?

And what ranch wouldn’t have horses?  We have seen many horses on this trip so far, mostly farther away and not as close as this.  The horses run free in the fields much like the cattle have been doing. 

As we have seen since driving into Nebraska, there are many pumps for oil and natural gas in the fields, whether that field is grass, wheat, or corn.

Now this was a sight that we just had to share.  What do they haul in these that each would need six axles to hold the weight?

No sooner then we cross into North Dakota we see another Pronghorn in the field.  The Pronghorn was some distance away and Carmen had to quickly take the picture because the speed limit here is 75 mph.

Nearing our destination for the night, Dickinson, North Dakota, we are driving through part of the national Grasslands.  And as you can see from this picture they are vast.

One last look at the grasslands and shack before reaching our hotel for the night.  We are here for two nights since tomorrow we will visit the south and north units of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park and will not travel very far afterwards.