So, we pulled off at the spot designated for taking photos. My first shot, with my 18-55 mm lens, made it look rather puny in the wide open spaces. Not what I expected at all.
Then I put on my friend Ike's 70-300 mm lens and brought it in closer (but it was windy and I had trouble holding the camera steady enough without a tripod, which I was usually too hurried to use).
Still not so impressive. Maybe we'd find a road that gets us closer. When we drove on down the road and turned toward the tower, we realized it was part of the National Parks system. An unexpected opportunity to use Ray's NPS senior pass ($10 lifetime investment that got us in to all the National Parks that charged a fee).
What was supposed to take less than an hour wound up taking us about three hours. All I can say is, if you ever go to Devils Tower, spring for the admission price to the park. It's phenomenal up close. And, yes, the sky really was that blue.
We decided to take the Tower Trail, a 1.5 mile hike that takes you around the entire tower. Each side of the tower had something new to offer. First, a reminder that this place is held sacred by many Native Americans, especially in the Plains tribes.
Ray posed at the base of the trail.
And off we went.
To go beyond the boulders at the base of the tower requires registration with the National Park Service (probably because only rock climbers go beyond there--and the NPS probably needs to know how to contact next of kin if they don't make it up and back safely).
Can you see the climbers in this one? (You really can only see one, because one is behind the other.) Look closely.
I must have a thing for dead trees, but this one really caught my attention.
On this side of the tower, I spotted a climber midway between "shelves" (wearing a light green jacket). But when I blew up the photo, there actually were SIX in the photo! First, the full shot.
Now for the closeup. Can you find them all?
About halfway around the tower, we came upon some viewing tubes (stationary so that you couldn't miss the ladder, although it still was hard to see) and this sign.
Here's a closeup of the historic ladder (horizontally about halfway across the photo, at a diagonal line with the "ribs" of the tower). Check it out to the right--yet another climber! (They don't let you use the ladder any more.) I read that it usually takes 4-6 hours to climb the tower, although someone did it in 18 minutes once.
Yep, another dead tree. You wonder what caused the trunk bark to look so twisted.
As I said earlier, the Plains Indians treat this as sacred place, and we saw prayer cloths like this one in trees all around the tower. Visitors are cautioned not to disturb them.
About three-fourths of the way around the tower, there were more trees. Right about now, we're thinking 1.5 miles is longer than we thought.
When I read this marker, I thought, "Oh, my! The tower is crumbling and may not be here much longer!"
Then I read the REST of the story.
Phew! I guess I have time to pose for a photo near where the loop trail meets up with where we began.
From here, we drove on to Hill City, So. Dakota. We thought we had a reservation at the Comfort Inn, but it didn't go through with the online booking site. (Always make sure you get a confirmation!) So, Ray looked at the travel book and we found a nice locally owned place called the Lantern Inn. Great people own it and we're glad that we got to stay there. Liked it so much, we stayed another night so we'd have a full day Monday to enjoy the 1880 Train and the Crazy Horse Memorial. I'll save that for another blog.
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