My girls...
Joy at finding the cache!
Red Sandstone Cliffs
Our first glimpse of Devils Tower
At the base of the Tower
Pillars of strength...
A view of the valley from Devils Tower
Just finishing our hike around the mountain.
Pretty as a picture...oh, wait....
One of many Black Tailed Prairie Dogs in the area.
We had another beautiful day for traveling as we moved on from Montana, but not before stopping for a few geocaches, of course. We needed to travel through the Northeast corner of Wyoming in order to reach our destination of Rapid City, SD. When I think about, we really got to see a lot of Wyoming on this trip and it really is a very diverse State. Constantly changing terrain, abundant wildlife, friendly folks...
I'll be honest, I had never heard of Devils Tower, although I probably should have. Devils Tower was the first declared United States National Monument, established on September 24, 1906, by President Theodore Roosevelt. It rises dramatically 1,267 feet above the surrounding terrain and the summit is 5,112 feet above sea level. It's classified as a monolithic igneous intrusion or volcanic neck, located in the Black Hills. As you are on approach to this monstrosity, you can't believe how crazy it looks!
As you can see from my picture of the surrounding valley, there is absolutely nothing else even remotely similar in the area. They have a great trail that winds around the base of the formation. It's about a mile hike but well worth the effort, we all had a fun time doing it. There were climbers on the Tower as we came around the backside and that was sweet to watch. I give them a lot of credit. So glad that we made the stop.
Mt. Rushmore tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment