Location: Boysen State Park, WY
Reluctantly leaving Custard State Park our first stop was Jewel Cave National Monument. As far as caves go it wasn't jaw dropping spectacular. I'm comparing it to Carlsbad which is the best for stalagtities, etc. and to Mammoth which is cavernous. There weren't a lot of formations, but when you consider that this cave is 180 miles and 90% of it is still undiscovered, that's amazing.
This is a view of the big room.
Here's just a small snapshot of a portion of the cave map. One section is called "The Miseries". You have to crawl thru a tunnel the size of a microwave opening for 1/2 a mile before getting to the next big room. Yeah, we opted for the short one room tour. For you cave lovers, there is a lantern tour where you carry your own oil lamp through several passages. This map reminds us of the map at the Empire Mine of all the underground mines in our area. Crazy.
If climbing through passages like this looks fun to you, by all means visit Jewel Cave National Monument. They are lots of different tours lasting from 20 min to several hours.
It was also 49 deg. in the cave. Funny moment: Our Ranger tour guide said, "Imagine camping in here as a volunteer explorer for 4 days. It would be so calm and peaceful". A little boy, about 4 years old, piped up and said quite vehemently, "No, it would not!". My sentiments exactly.
Our original plan was to drive across Wyoming heading towards a reservoir in the middle of the state. At the visitor's center Ned spotted Devils Tower on a map and asked it I wanted to go. It was a mere 96 miles in a different direction. Heck, we once drove 200 miles out of our way for fried chicken (Whistle Stop Cafe, GA). Of course, we're going there! We saw this little butte on the way and we assumed Devils Tower would be something similar.
Not even close...
Here's the real Devils Tower, taken from a distance.
If you were like me the only thing you know about it is from the movie, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
This was the very first National Monument established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.
The tower rises 867 feet from its base and stands 1267 feet above the river and 5112 feet above sea level. The area of its teardrop-shaped top is 1.5 acres.
Here's a closer view of the tower from the base. You can see the hexagonal pillars really clearly. So how did these form? There are several theories. One is that about 50 million years ago molten magma was forced into sedimentary rocks above it and cooled underground. As it cooled it contracted and fractured into columns.
We spotted some climbers just beginning their ascent. There are 2 of them in this pic. (I think there were 3 climbing tho). In the bottom left corner is one climber, and in the clump of trees above him is the other.
We were impressed with them until we learned they were violating the voluntary moratorium during the month of June enforced by the Park. Apparently, this is a sacred month for this local tribe's rituals which involve the Tower.
Ned standing in front of a painting depicting the Indian legend of Devils Tower.
It was a hot, dusty day and we had about a 5 hour drive in front of us. We didn't do any hikes or explore a lot of this park. We left without encountering any aliens.
Driving across Wyoming...local humor.
Climbing over the Big Horn Mountains was amazing. It could have been a national park with the canyons, mountains and river.
We pulled into a campground at about 8 pm tonight. We're camped on the Big Horn River. It's a very primitive campground, no showers & no flush toilets, but hey it's a spot for the night! After a long hot drive across Wyoming I'm ready to call it a night.
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