Why
Devils Tower
is special

Devils Tower is a natural monolith in remote northeast Wyoming. It spectacularly soars 240 meters (800 feet) above the surrounding landscape. It is sacred to American Indians, staggering to tourists, and exciting to rock climbers. 

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Devils Tower
tips & insights

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Origin

It formed 50 million years ago when rising molten rock (magna) cooled and solidified before it had a chance to pierce the earth's surface to create a volcano. (Geologists call the action igneous intrusion).

Devils Tower remained underground until two million years ago when water and wind erosion began removing the comparatively softer sedimentary rock around it. Slowly, more and more of buried Devils Tower was exposed to earthly eyes. The process continues.

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Surface

Devils Tower is not flat surfaced, though it appears to be from afar. Its sides consist of hexagonal columns, which nature sometimes creates from magna as it cools and contracts (a process called crystallization). The furrowed columns are up to 2.4 meters (8 feet) wide. For a sense of scale, notice the climber standing on one of the columns in the close-up photo below.

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Indian legends

There are many Indian legends about the rock. My favorite tells us that a hungry bear tried to attack seven little girls picking flowers. To protect them, the Great Spirit raised the rock they were standing on (which created the monolith) and transformed them into stars (the Pleiades Constellation). The bear's unsuccessful attempt to climb up left claw marks (the vertical cracks between the columns).

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Close Encounters
of the Third Kind

Devils Tower is the place where the alien spacecraft landed in the hit 1977 movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

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Climbing Devils rock

Thousands of rock-climbers scale the monolith per year. In 1995, the National Park Service asked climbers to voluntarily not scale Devils Tower every June to allow American Indians to hold their sacred ceremonies without distractions. This request has generated serious displeasure among some climbers, but most have obliged. For non-climbers, a 2.2 kilometer (1.3 mile) nature trail encircles Devils Tower.

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Visitor count

About 400,000 people visit the Devils Tower National Park each year.

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Name

American Indians call it by various names. Bears Lodge is the most common. Grammatically, the English-language name should be "Devil's Tower", with the apostrophe. The error has been around ever since a geologist named it in 1875. The monolith has been whimsically called as a "giant tree stump".

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