[Devil’s Tower National Monument, Jun 21, 2025]

Somewhere along the way of planning this trip, I realized that we would be just a couple of hours way from Devil’s Tower, an impressive collection of columns rising almost 900 ft into the sky. The town of Sheridan, WY, was another 1.5 hours west. It was a good place to spend the night because it put us within a coupe of hours of Billings MT, where we were flying in and out of. This would make our travel day significantly shorter than if we were coming all the way from Custer. It was a no-brainer. Unfortunately, Spearfish and the Spearfish Canyon scenic drive were too far out of the way. That and Jewel Cave National Monument would have to stay on the list for next time.

With only Devil’s Tower and Sheridan on our schedule, we had a leisurely start to our morning. The drive to Devil’s Tower was easy. The temps lowered and the cloud cover increased as we approached. It was nice and cool 64F when we arrived just after 11 am. I was surprised to find a quarter-mile line of cars before the entrance. A stop light regulated traffic so as to not overwhelm the parking lot at the top. Waiting at that light added about 30 minutes to our arrival time.

Of course, we popped into the visitor center first. I was looking at the stickers and magnets and couldn’t figure out why so many of them featured a UFO. “What’s up with all the UFOs”, I said out loud. A woman heard me and explained that the 1977 movie “Close Encounter of the Third Kind” included a major scene at Devil’s Tower. Now I am going to have to watch that movie.

We did the short loop around the tower and marveled at the geological forces that created it. Many years ago, magma from deep within the Earth’s core forced itself into the existing sedimentary rock layers. As the magma cooled, it formed the distinctive pattern of hexagonal columns we see today. This process is called columnar jointing. Over time wind, water and ice eroded the tower and left it jutting out from the surface.

We spent about an hour at the monument. As we left, we saw that the line to get in had gotten much longer. We counted the cars – there were 100 in line!

The drive to Sheridan was only 90 minutes. After checking into our hotel, we chose an Indian/Nepali restaurant for dinner. We were jonesing for something other than American! The restaurant seemed a bit quiet for a Saturday night, so we asked our server why that was. He speculated that it might be some sort of race going on, but he didn’t know what it was.

The next morning, we had extra time before our flight so we decided to dip into the hotel hot tub before breakfast. Another person joined and he told us he was in town for the Bighorn Trail run – an ultra-running event that took place the day before. The restaurant guy was right after all!

And that concluded a wonderful week in the Dakotas. Every time I told someone where I was going, the first question they asked was “What’s there?” I hope these posts have inspired you to take a second look at those oft overlooked states.