Devil’s Tower
We had quite a show last night. Electrical storm all around us. Watched the southern sky for about twenty minutes, went inside for a while then back out to watch the northern sky for another half hour. It seemed like the storms did not move. Lightning happened in the same parts of the sky the whole time. The time between flashes was seconds, not minutes. Great show! The finale was when the storm moved over us. Several times lightning and thunder were simultaneous. Unnerving but fun.
The days objective was Devil’s Tower. Sixty mile drive through pretty country. From reading road advisory signs we determined they have an interesting and quite logical way to deal with snow on the road in winter. They close the roads. The signs say ‘road closed go back to town’(Nearest town listed). We went through a couple of towns that would be cut off from the outside with no road connection if there was a good snowfall.
What to say about Devil’s Tower. Big, impressive, almost as many tourists per square foot as Old Faithful (not quite as bad). We took pictures, walked half way around (other half of trail was being resurfaced), and watched climbers do their thing. There are many routes to climb to the top but only eight ways down using hardware that the NPS has fixed in position.
Devils Tower
This is interesting. The first ascent of the tower was made by a couple of guys who made a crude ladder by wedging wood in a crack and climbing up. The ladder is still there!
It is in the center of these pictures. Look hard.
A different angle is a little easier to see. Left side of picture. The picture appears to show slope but it is actually pretty vertical at that point.
The ladder only helped climb the middle third of the tower. Bottom and top were free climbing.
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