Day 13: Devils Tower and Bighorn National Forest (Wyoming)

This morning we woke up at the Belle Fourche Campground (named after a nearby river) within the park, right at the base of Devil's Tower. It is a great campground, maintained by the National Park Service. There are no hookups, but it is only $12/night, so can't beat that.

We got up earlier, around 6:30 and after packing up, drove to the Visitor's Center, only 2 minutes away. We decided to take a bike ride on one of the several trails that circumnavigates the tower. It was nice that it was so early, because it wasn't yet hot, and there was no one yet on the trail.

My impression of the tower is that it is the coolest natural phenomenon I have ever seen. It's hard to describe, but it's there are vertical columns of thick rock (some of them symmetrical) that wrap around the entire base of a large pillar. I read that on top of Devil's Tower, it is totally flat, about the area of a football field.

Millions of years ago, Devil's Tower used to exist underground; it was was at the center of a huge volcano, and was formed by hot lava surging through a void in the ground. After some time, it cooled and hardened into this shape. Then millions of years passed, and the topsoil and overlying sedimentary rock was eroded away, leaving this pillar standing intact.

I hope someday to climb to the top! In the meantime, I want to rewatch Close Encounters of the Third Kind ;)

After leaving Devil's tower, we headed towards the park exit and came across a Prairie Dog town! There were tens of prairie dogs everywhere. They were pretty cute and we were able to get some good pictures.

We then began to drive west, intending to get to Bighorn National Forest. The drive was very cool - at a certain point, a monstrous curtain of mountains just seemed to appear in the distance, growing larger as we approached it.

If you look closely you can see the snow
at the top way in the distance.

I had never really heard of the Bighorn Mountains, and was very impressed by the sheer size - they're not the Rockies and already they dwarf anything I've seen in the White Mountains! We gained some altitude, of around 7000 feet. The highpoint I believe is over 9000 feet.

We found a remote campsite at the Arrowhead Lodge in the middle of the forest. I have never heard such quiet. An hour after arriving we saw a deer cut through a field 50 feet away from us. I look forward to exploring more tomorrow.

Random Fact of the Day: In the Bighorn National Forest, there is a campground called "Dead Swede Campground." No one seems to know the story behind it, though.