Devil's Tower, August 2004

I drove up to see Chuck from Corvallis, who happens to also be the climbing ranger at Devil's Tower. It's a gorgeous 7-hour drive from Boulder, including some cool Oregon Trail historical sites in Gurnsey, and a nice diner in Lusk. We then climbed for a few days, and I drove back. This weekend happened to fall just a few days before the annual Sturgis Rally in nearby South Dakota came through town, so we intermingled with the bikers a good deal on the 1/4-mile, 1-hour walks between the tower base and the visitor center.

Answers to the top questions along the trail:

• "Oh, about five hours up, maybe an hour to get down."
• "Pretty flat, couple rocks."
• "No major falls have been recorded in the park, and some geologists say it's been 10,000 years since any of the columns fell."
• "That's against park regulations, although people have been forced to spend the night."
• "Actually, isn't that Harley you got there pretty dangerous?"

Interestingly, we witnessed (unbeknownst to us) the first party attempting to climb the tower with paragliding equipment. They were moving slowly up El Matador with huge packs (`Vee have much vater and headlamps vith us, sir.') before giving up. They successfully climbed Durrance the next day instead, and sailed off the top to the ground, where Chuck arranged for their $350 fine.

Run Slideshow (medium-sized images) -- recommended

Run Slideshow (big images)

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