Hiking Around Devil's Tower

Today we went to Devil's Tower. The original Indian name was Bear House, but an exporer changed it.

Legend has it that 7 young Indian girls were being chased by a bear -- and jumped on top of a rock and prayed to the rock to save them. The rock heard their pleas and began to get taller and taller. The vertical lines on the tower are from the bear scratching the sides to try and reach the girls. The tower got higher and higher until it pushed up into the sky, where they are to this day in a group of seven little stars called the Pleiades.

More modern theory is that the tower may be a plug from the top of a volcano that erupted millions of years ago and the softer rock eroded away. The tower is a spiritual place for the Lakota Indians and there are prayer rags all around the tower.






This is a picture of Neal and myself at the base of the tower.

There is also a large Prairie Dog community just outside the park. They are real cute!