We were on the move today, heading to Rapid City in South Dakota, but took a detour to view the Devils Tower National Monument near Sundance in northeastern Wyoming.

Although Devils Tower has long been a prominent landmark, the origin of the mammoth rock obelisk remains somewhat obscure. Geologists agree that Devils Tower consists of molten rock forced upwards from deep within the earth. Debate continues, however, as to whether Devils Tower is solidified lava from the neck of an ancient volcano, the walls of which eroded long ago, or whether it is a sheet of molten rock which was injected between rock layers. The characteristic furrowed columns are apparently the result of uniformly arranged cracks which appeared during the cooling of the volcanic magma.

Estimates have placed the age of Devils Tower at greater than fifty million years, although it is likely that erosion uncovered the rock formation only one or two million years ago!

Devils Tower rises dramatically 1,267 feet (386 m) above the Belle Fourche River, standing 867 feet (265 m) from base to summit. Each summer, hundreds of climbers descend upon the area to scale the sheer rock walls!

Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” used Devils Tower as a plot element and as the location of its climatic scenes!