Devils Tower was sacred for thousands of years before Roosevelt put it on a map

Devils Tower’s 120-year history runs deep

Northeast Wyoming doesn’t ease you in. You’re driving through rolling prairie, and then it appears on the horizon, 867 feet of rock columns rising straight out of the ground like nothing else on the continent.

Devil’s Tower doesn’t look real at first. It looks like something you’d see in a painting and dismiss as exaggeration.

But it’s there, it’s been there for tens of millions of years, and the people who knew it first gave it a name that tells you everything: Bear Lodge. The story behind that name is carved right into the rock.

The columns were shaped by fire, not water

The Tower is made of phonolite porphyry, a rare igneous rock that formed when magma pushed up into layers of sedimentary rock tens of millions of years ago.

As the magma cooled, it cracked into the polygonal columns you see running up every side of the Tower. The surrounding rock eroded away over time, leaving those columns exposed.

The summit sits at 5,112 feet above sea level and covers about 1.5 acres, roughly the size of a football field. The whole monument takes in 1,347 acres of prairie, ponderosa pine forest, and river valley.

Bears clawed the rock and left their marks behind

The Lakota, Kiowa, and more than 20 other tribes have their own stories about this place, and the most widespread one involves bears.

In the Lakota and Kiowa oral traditions, a group of girls climbed onto a rock to escape giant bears chasing them. They prayed to the Great Spirit, who pushed the rock high into the sky.

The bears clawed at the sides as it rose, scratching the deep vertical grooves you can see on the Tower today. The girls rose into the heavens and became the Pleiades.

Look up at those stars from the base and you’ll understand why this place is sacred.

Roosevelt made it official in 1906, but the name has a troubled past

More than 20 tribes, including the Lakota, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Crow, Arapaho, and Eastern Shoshone, hold this site sacred. Prayer offerings, sweat lodges, and sun dances still take place here.

The English name, though, came from a mistake. In 1875, Colonel Richard Irving Dodge’s interpreter reportedly translated a native name as “Bad God’s Tower,” and the name stuck.

President Theodore Roosevelt declared it the nation’s first national monument on Sept. 24, 1906. In 2026, it will mark 120 years.

The 1.3-mile paved loop puts you right at the base

The Tower Trail circles the base in 1.3 miles and takes you through ponderosa pine forest and a massive boulder field of fallen column fragments, some up to eight feet across and 25 feet long.

Interpretive signs explain what you’re seeing, geologically and ecologically. As you walk, you’ll notice colorful cloths and small bundles tied to trees along the trail.

Those are sacred offerings left by Native American visitors. Leave them alone.

Benches are spaced along the route so you can sit and take in the Tower from every angle without rushing.

Go wider for bigger views on the Red Beds Trail

If you want more distance and a fuller picture of the Tower’s shape, the Red Beds Trail gives you a 2.8-mile loop that swings out past colorful red shale formations with the Belle Fourche River Valley opening up below.

Because you’re farther from the base, you see the Tower differently, and the shape changes depending on where you’re standing.

The Joyner Ridge Trail adds another 1.5 miles through pine forest and mixed grass prairie on a quieter ridge to the north. In spring, the meadows there fill with wildflowers.

Six hundred prairie dogs put on a show near the entrance

A 40-acre prairie dog town near the base is home to more than 600 black-tailed prairie dogs, and they are not shy. Watch them pop in and out of burrows and chirp alarm calls back and forth across the colony.

The town draws foxes, deer, turkey vultures, and prairie falcons too, so keep your eyes on the sky as well as the ground. You don’t have to hike to see them.

The colony sits right off the road, so you can pull over and watch from your vehicle if you’d rather stay put.

Two ranchers built a peg ladder and climbed it on the Fourth of July

On July 4, 1893, local ranchers William Rogers and Willard Ripley made the first recorded climb to the top of Devils Tower. They didn’t use ropes.

In the weeks before, they drove wooden pegs into a vertical crack on the southeast face and built a 350-foot ladder straight up the rock.

About 1,000 people gathered at the base, some traveling more than 100 miles by horse and wagon to watch. Rogers reached the summit and raised an American flag from a pole they’d already placed up there.

You can still see remnants of that wooden peg ladder on the Tower’s face today.

Crack climbers come from all over the world for this rock

Devils Tower is one of the top crack climbing destinations in North America.

Hundreds of parallel cracks run up the columns, and routes range in difficulty from 5.7 to 5.13, drawing climbers of every skill level. All climbers must register with a park ranger before and after they go up.

Every June, a voluntary closure asks climbers to stay off the Tower so Native American ceremonies can take place without interruption during that culturally significant month.

Since the closure started in 1995, June climbing has dropped by more than 80 percent.

A marble sculpture frames the Tower like a portrait

Near the base stands the Circle of Sacred Smoke, a 12-foot sculpture carved from white marble by Japanese artist Junkyu Muto. Installed in 2008, it represents the first puff of smoke rising from a sacred pipe.

It’s the third in a planned series of seven peace sculptures placed at significant sites around the world, following installations at the Vatican in 2000 and Bodhi Gaya, India, in 2005. Sit in front of it and look through the open center.

The Tower fills the frame exactly.

The Tribal Connections interpretive site around the sculpture connects the Tower to its spiritual history.

The Milky Way rises right over the Tower on clear nights

Devils Tower sits far enough from any major city that light pollution barely registers.

On clear nights, you get stars edge to edge across the sky, along with planets and the Milky Way stretching directly overhead. The National Park Service runs Night Sky Programs throughout the year.

The Joyner Ridge Trailhead and the Circle of Sacred Smoke picnic area are two of the better spots to set up and look up.

The Pleiades, the star cluster at the center of the Lakota and Kiowa origin story, are visible in the sky directly above the Tower.

The monument stays open year-round and rewards every season

White-tailed deer, mule deer, porcupines, bats, and rattlesnakes all live in the forests and prairies here. Bald eagles and prairie falcons nest in the Tower’s cracks.

Ponderosa pines crowd the base and give way to cottonwood groves down along the Belle Fourche River.

The Visitor Center is open year-round and covers the Tower’s geology, natural history, and cultural significance in depth.

Ranger-led programs run from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, including tower walks, cultural talks, and a Junior Ranger Program. Come in any season and the place looks different every time.

Visit Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming

You can reach the monument off Wyoming Highway 24 in Crook County, about 100 miles northwest of Rapid City, South Dakota. The monument is open year-round, 24 hours a day.

The Visitor Center, at 340 WY-110, is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., though hours vary by season, so check the official website before you go.

Admission runs $25 per vehicle, and the monument accepts the National Parks pass. The Belle Fourche River Campground inside the monument is first-come, first-served.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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