Devils Tower, WY

Devils Tower is another one of the kid additions to The List of Road Trip Stops. They really took it seriously when we put up that big piece of butcher block paper and told them to fill it with places they wanted to go and things they wanted to see. 

There's not a ton to see, but the tower is certainly a geographical oddity, which is why it became the first official National Monument. 

Scientists speculate that the tower was the core of an ancient volcano, the size of which is incomprehensible. It's actually composed of hexagonal columns, so from a bird's eye view it would look like a honeycomb. It's a haven for rock climbers.

There is a small museum with information about the make up of the tower, the Native American lore about it, and how it became the first National Monument. There's also a mile-ish hiking path around the base.

The base of the tower has tons of fallen rock columns. They have created interesting rock formations in their own right, with lots of crawl spaces to explore. 

The tower stands about a mile high.

Junior Rangers exploring the tower.

The view from the east side of the tower.

Part of a collapsed column. John and Sayer for perspective.

Devils Tower is the modern name for the formation. Native Americans call it Bear Lodge (this fact reminded me of the Mt. McKinley/Denali debate). It's called that because of the myth about it's formation. They tell a story of how some little girls were playing when a bear came out of nowhere. The girls were trapped so they jumped on a rock and started to pray and as they prayed the rock grew and grew until the bear could not reach them. The rock grew so high that they could not get down and they became stars. 

As I'm writing this Gunnar and Patton are debating whether the myth says that they became the stars in the Big Dipper or the Pleiades. They can't agree, but it's one of those. 

Devils Tower is also reportedly one of the best places in the U.S. for viewing the night sky because it has so little light pollution.

So, that's Devils Tower. Do the Junior Ranger program, hike the trail, see the tower close up. It's uniqueness makes it worth the stop.