On our way to Coeur d’Alene ID from Rapid City, we decided to take a detour and go see Devil’s Tower, the mountain portrayed in “Close Encounter of the Third Kind”.

Devil’s Tower was a landmark for the Native tribes long before the White man came to Wyoming. It was called Mateo Tepee ( Grizzly Bear lodge) by the Sioux. A number of Indian legends describe the origin of Devil’s Tower, one of them talks about 7 sisters who were chased by a bear and tried to take refuge on a low rock, their prayers for help were answered when the rock started to grow and carried them to the sky, while the claws of the bear left furrowed columns on the side of the tower. When the rock touched the sky, the sisters were transformed into stars forming the constellation we know today as the Pleiades.

Colonel Richard I. Dodge while on an expedition named the tower Devil’s Tower. Congress made Devil’s Tower the first National monument in 1906.

The Tower rises 1280 feet above the Belle Fourche River and has become a climbing mecca. The first one to successfully climb the tower was William Rogers, in 1893, he constructed a wooden ladder of pegs driven into the crack of the rock face. Today despite the fact that the Indians consider this mountain sacred and are really not happy with people climbing it and driving metal objects into it, hundreds of people climb the mountain each summer.

On a funny note (I thought it was funny), a guy in 1941 landed on top of the tower with a parachute, he then got stranded on top of it for 6 days and nights, until rescuers were able to get to him. My opinion is that he should have removed himself from the gene pool, if you are going to land on top of Devil’s Tower, you should have a plan to get down afterwards…. 😉