Climbing Rocks on the 4th of July
Our one-night stop near Devil's Tower National Monument
Summer means travel for my family. It also means that between commentary on life, social issues, and our years living in Texas, I will deliver two to three posts a month about our family’s summer travels until the end of the year.
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When I was 15-years-old, my family took an ill-fated trip through the Black Hills. Our first night on the road after leaving our home in Riverton, Wyoming, was Devil’s Tower. My parents, who had never camped on their own, decided our family of six was going to make camping a thing. We were not prepared. We didn’t have the right equipment. And when a sudden Black Hills thunderstorm came up in the middle of the night, my sister Lisa and I stayed dry in our little dome tent while the rest of the family got drenched when their tent collapsed.
It was not a great moment, and it did not convince the four of us girls we should continue camping for the remainder of the vacation, but our parents insisted we keep it up anyway.
The next morning we woke up to glorious blue skies, perfect conditions to climb the boulder field at the base of Devil’s Tower before continuing on to Mount Rushmore. My younger sister Lisa and I scrambled to the top, our dad close on our heels. My mom and two youngest sisters had to stay down on the trail. The climb to the base was one of those core childhood memories that has stuck with me for 30 years.
Which is why, when my husband Jeff and I went to Yellowstone ten years later, I desperately wanted to make that stop. I wanted to show him where my camping career almost ended. He argued we didn’t have the time. After all, we were going over 3000 miles in eight days. And so we drove right past the signs and continued on to Yellowstone.
Order my book to read more about the above camping trips and many more camping experiences over the years.
So when we planned our big family trip to Yellowstone, I wasn’t going to miss taking my family to Devil’s Tower.
After two full days of exploring monuments, caves, and state parks, we continued two hours west to an RV park about 30 miles away from Devil’s Tower. With the short drive, we arrived in the early afternoon, giving us plenty of time to take care of the dogs before we headed up to the national monument for the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening.
As we got closer to the monument, we could see the giant lonely rock in the middle of piney green hills. Jeff drove along the bottom of the hill and wove up to the line of cars waiting to get into the crowded parking lot. The park has become increasingly popular and cannot accommodate the number of cars it sees all day long. One can park at the bottom and hike at least a mile to the visitor center. Or you can wait for the stoplight to turn green so you can attempt to find a coveted spot. Since we arrived at the park after four, we didn’t have to wait long, but it was long enough for Jeff and I to switch places so I could drive us through the traffic while he took a well-deserved nap.
We visited the visitor center, got our passport stamps and some stickers, and then headed out on the paved trail circling the monument.
It didn’t take long for us to arrive at the same boulder field my sister, dad, and I had climbed 30 years before. Our teenagers took off, our son proving he wasn’t being lazy during his two weeks off from football conditioning and coaxing his big sister to keep following him. They climbed all the way to the trees as Jeff and I climbed a little more carefully to the halfway point between the trail and the tree line.
Experienced rock climbers with equipment and permits are allowed to climb to the top of the national monument, but any other visitors have to stop at the top of the boulder field and climb the fallen rocks at their own risk. As we hiked around the tower, our son kept returning to the field to climb and jump from rock to rock. And when we got to the end of the trail, he asked if he could climb to the top again. Jeff and I found a flat rock to sit and wait for him to finish his climb and then return to us.
Before we left the park, we stopped at the Circle of Sacred Smoke sculpture just outside of the national park campground. It is a stunning sculpture representing the first puff of smoke from a newly lit pipe and is “designed to raise visitor awareness of the importance of the tower to over twenty affiliated tribes.”
Then I made Jeff stop at the prairie dog town on our way out so I could get some pictures of the adorable (and not diseased, like in the Badlands) prairie dogs taking residence in the national monument.
We were originally supposed to celebrate the Fourth of July in Custer, South Dakota, but we were finished with everything we were going to do and we were ready to move on.1 We knew the national park wouldn’t do fireworks (sacred land) but we were told the KOA right outside of the park was still doing fireworks.
It was going to be a long wait. We got to the monument in the late afternoon, but we still had to wait for the park to get dark. We got food from a food truck (and waited forever) and joined tourists and locals traveling to one of the only places in the surrounding area where they would get to watch fireworks.2 As the sun set behind the monument, we watched tiny lights appear along the sides and on top, indicating climbers who were still making the ascent on the massive rock tower.
The fireworks show itself was spectacular, the smoke and sounds lingering in the valley below the national park. It was a late dinner and a late night, but we were glad we had stayed.
Devil’s Tower was the first national monument and is an important part of Teddy Roosevelt’s legacy. It is considered sacred by Northern Plains Indians and indigenous people. It is the focus of fantastic legends and myths. It was the filming location for Stephen Spielberg’s early classic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.3 The monument is beautiful, unique, and ties the present to the past. I cannot recommend it enough as a quick stop if you are traveling through eastern Wyoming.
Do you want to know more about how I plan our vacations? Check out this blog post and get a copy of my planning spreadsheet below:
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There is still a fire ban nearly everywhere out west for good reason. They weren’t going to let just anyone set off a huge fireworks show.
And there are all sorts of merchandise right outside of the park to remind visitors of the classic sci-fi film. The KOA right outside of the park also does nightly viewings of the film.