Devil's Tower, Wyoming

Devil's Tower has been a source of fascination for me ever since I saw the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It is a stock, a small intrusive body formed by magma which cooled underground and was later exposed by erosion. * (Source of information Park News 2013, National Park Service, U. S. Department of the Interior) The magma which formed Devil's Tower cooled and crystallized into a rock type known as phonolite porphyry. It is a light to dark-gray or greenish-gray igneous rock with crystals of white feldspar. As the rock cooled, it contracted forming hexagonal (and sometimes 4,5,and 7 sided) columns separated by vertical cracks.

This is a view as you drive up from the entrance to the park.

There are several legends about the Tower.

This is the opposite side. The sun is not shining on the rock from this view, but we were near the base of the tower, near the boulders that have broken off of the tower.

Various climbers were making an assent to the top. With my binoculars we watched them climb for a few minutes. Records of Tower climbs have been kept since 1937 and every year some 5,000 climbers come from all over the world to climb on the massive columns using over 220 climbing routes.

Prairie dogs are found in the flat lands at the base of the mountain where the tower is located. This one posed for a picture before scurrying to his hole and disappearing.













If you want to read about the climbing experiences of those who have reached the top of Devil's Tower, just do a Google search on climbing Devil's Tower. It is fascinating reading!