Image #253 – Devil’s Tower

One month ago I was at Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. Made famous by the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” the rock is massively beautiful.

Our weather was not the best. It was a white-gray sky that occasionally opened up with torrents of rain.  Not exactly the best day for photography but it didn’t matter.  Devil’s Tower is such a wonder of nature. The Native Americans call it Bear Rock and legend has it the striations in the rock were caused by gigantic bear that tried to claw his way to the top after the earth spewed forth the rock to save several children (some legends claim it was three girls, another claims it was two boys). The rock literally rose from the ground after the children prayed to be saved from the massive grizzly that was chasing them.

I like thinking of it as Bear Rock. I spent some time looking at websites about the rock and one website said this, “Of course, Devil’s Tower is a white man’s name. We have no devil in our beliefs and got along well all these many centuries without him. You people invented the devil and, as far as I’m concerned, you can keep him.”   You can read more here.

Bear Rock or Devil’s Tower, it is something to behold.  We enjoyed a nice hike in the region surrounding the rock. Needless to say, it dominates the landscape (it is visible for miles, truly) and it was a constant backdrop for our hike on Joyner Trail.