Day 39 Devils Tower WY

Up with the sun today highly motivated to catch views of the tower with dawn light. So motivated in fact that I was on the mountain before coffee and, although I made it perfectly clear that I didn’t expect it, David was up and out with me. He too was under the Devils spell. Our reward was the solitude of the early morning! When we arrived at the base two climbers were preparing for their day. About 5000 climbers a year ascend the sheer rock face. David and I were quite content to share a view of a mama whitetail and her fawn and then wish them well as we set out on a 2 km hike around the base of the tower.  At over 5,000 feet the air at this level is thin and a hike more strenuous than normal. This is plenty high enough for me!

Devils Tower in the dawns early light.

Some perspective since I don't think the pictures do it justice. That's David standing in front of the fallen rocks at the base1

Bathed in fist light, The rocks that David was in front of are below this treeline!

Our only company (one of the joys of early morning) were the squirrels chattering and fighting, hopping, kangaroo like along the mountain trails. Squirrels don’t move like this as home and we wonder is it because of the rocky terrain that they move by hopping rather than the customary scamper?  Deer appeared occasionally,  and the rustle of ground cover indicating the presence of some critter – quite probably a rattlesnake since they are common here, and the striped lower bark of the ponderosa pine, evidence that porcupines were hard at work while we slept is the only other evidence of life. The squirrels were hilarious and their antics resulted in our laughter that reverberated off the tower walls to mock us with the only other human sound available at this hour on the side of a mountain in this remote area of Wyoming.

The site is used still as a sacred place by the native people.During the month of June their is a voluntary climbing closure out of respect for American Indian beliefs

Prayer cloths.

In my last post I may have mentioned a prairie dog town? On our way up this morning there was no sign of life there. Clearly those guys are not early risers like us! After 90 minutes on the mountain we returned, to find hundreds of them, enjoying breakfast in the early morning sunshine. No wonder they call it a town!! Both side of the road are flanked with countless mounds and literally hundreds of prairie dogs, hesitant at first but that early morning hunger is persistent. When they realized we weren’t a threat they resumed breakfast and we were left to click away to our hearts content. Called the most social of wild animals, their communication system is complex and evident after a short time. It was as if whoever we were closest to would shout and shout a warning. Everyone went on high alert until he decided we weren’t a real threat and the bark would change as he seemed to say, “False alarm fellas, it’s all good. Go back to breakfast. “And activity would resume until we were close to someone else. But as it is with the prairie dogs, hunger is a powerful motivation so reluctantly we left (for now) to head back to the trailer in search of our breakfast.

Prairie dog!

And another, of hundreds in this field.

Longhorn - what was God thinking with this ... making a creature with horns so big and awkward that he can't eat?

In full morning sun from the campground.

They have donkeys (and other assorted animals) at the campground. The farmer shared a legend of how the donkey came to have these markings. After Jesus road the donkey into Jerusalem  he offered the animal a blessing and the donkey now carries the markings of a cross on his back. According to this farmer, all donkeys have them and if the marking isn't there, that's how you can tell it is not a pure bred donkey! Not sure if that is true but it made for a nice story!

Well we had little choice but to learn more about the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally since today thousands of bikes descended on Devils Tower and these folks are the friendliest (but often appear the sketchiest) characters we’ve met on the road! They were shocked that we weren’t bikers and managed to get reservations. Good thing we decided to plan this so long ago or we may have missed this awesome day. According to the many, many bikers who stopped to chat, this Rally is a big deal with people coming from all over the world – one couple said they were parked next to people from Japan!! These are serious bikers. Seeing so many, David surmised that there must have been thousands of bikes. One guy laughed and said hundreds of thousands. He claimed the record set a couple of years back was 700,000 – motorcycles, all in one place!!!

We spent some time this afternoon watching the tower climbers through binoculars. These people are crazy. It’s 100° here today and they are swinging on a rope 1000 feet above a very rocky base. There would have to be a much greater reward than just being able to claim you had done it!! We were warm enough just watching from the shade, so the biker tent with $1.00 draughts was much more enticing. Hey, they had bottled water too, but since they charged $1.00 for that, where was the decision?

Found a pay phone and calling card today so we could call home and talk to Andrew before he leaves tonight for Europe. It feels really funny not to be a part of something so exciting for him. By the time he returns on August 31^st I won’t have seen him for two months. That’s really weird for me. We will both have so many stories to share by then it may take until Christmas!

After a delicious BBQ of some steak we picked up in Montana we decided on another evening hike. The trail through the prairie dog colony and out along the river was just the thing to round out a perfect day. On the way back to the truck in the waning light, a bluebird followed along as if to be sure we arrived safely back at our truck.

I’m taking a few minutes now to post this blog before heading down to the outdoor theater to watch Close Encounters (barring any sudden storms!). We’ve seen it before but the chance of watching it here is a bit of a thrill! The kettle’s almost boiled and the sun is setting – gotta go!

A glass of wine and a good meal and that man of mine is happy ... so easy to please.

More friends on our evening stroll.

The Belle Fourche River and red cliffs at sunset.

Once again perspective - that's our truck, dwarfed by the Devils Tower.

Can you see the bluebird on the 4th post?