Day 37 – Devils Tower

Today we had a close encounter with rocks. Lots of rocks. A wonderful field of boulders just waiting to be climbed on: The “foothill” of Devils Tower. After spending more than 8 hours on the road yesterday, it was wonderful to just roll out of the campsite and into a National Monument this morning, though we actually started the day with the movie we had meant to watch last night – Close Encounters of the Third Kind (which, btw, is good to watch during the day as it is even less scary 🙂 )  Getting close to Devils Tower meant going past a field of prairie dogs and after seeing so much oversized wildlife in Yellowstone, we really enjoyed the “cuteness” factor of these guys. Still, getting some good shots was quite tricky, as they kept disappearing down one of their many holes…

Prairie dog

And a few friends

Devils Tower reminded all of us of something different – Arthur thought it looked like a gigantic tree stump, I was thinking of an enormous frosted cake, and Leo argued that human impact (all those climbers) must have created a gigantic rock slide which is now a boulder playground for young and old kids.

Devils Tower view from the trail’s quarter point

Devils Tower from the halfway point of the trail

All three Bares boys clambered up the field of rocks, and then we enjoyed the short trail around the massive feature (whatever it reminded us of, it was visually stunning and conveyed an awesome presence of the power of nature). We used our time well – soaking up all the beautiful sunshine and delicious warm pine forest air we could before getting back on the road to Rapid City, but that adventure will be for Arthur to tell.

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