Wyoming's Rock Hard Protrusion

     In northeastern Wyoming, there's a natural wonder tucked away in the woods that is truly awe-inspiring. I never thought I'd type that sentence with sincerity, but alas, I've been proven wrong again (I could have sworn it was Kurt Russell in Point Break and Patrick Swayze in Tango & Cash!) Devil's Tower National Monument is a monolithic igneous intrusion, which is geologist talk for "huge rock that looks freakin' awesome." It's older than dirt (ha!) and humans have flocked to it for thousands of years for all kinds of reasons.

"Heh heh heh, hey Butt-head, check it out, the Earth has a boner."

     Clichés be damned, pictures really don't do it justice. The tower stands alone in a copse of serenely quiet pines. Wandering through those woods, craning my neck up to gaze at this marvel, I was overcome with a sense of peaceful calm. I tend to look at most things with a rather cynical eye, but even I couldn't restrain my wonder. I definitely understand why Richard Dreyfuss made a mashed potato replica of this thing in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Filmed on location...somewhere else.

     As you wander around the tower, you see little cloths tied to tree branches, or rock pyramids scattered about. Devil's Tower is a place of great religious importance to several Native American tribes, and they worship there. Unfortunately, this comes into conflict with the other group of people that flock to Devil's Tower most frequently - rock climbers. For years, these two groups have battled over who's entitled to have their views on the Tower respected. The Native Americans believe it is a place of worship, and see it as a Catholic might if a guy in Speedo shorts and a yellow helmet started flinging ropes onto the roof of the Vatican and scaled it to take pictures at the top. The climbers believe they're entitled to climb the Tower because...well, I'm not really sure what gives them their sense of entitlement, aside from, of course, their fancy belts with lots of metal loopy things hanging off. 

"Next summer, I plan on scaling the Taj Mahal."

     The matter was finally "settled" in the early 90's by Wyoming courts. They decided both sides had a legitimate claim to the Tower; the native people who have worshiped there for tens of thousands of years, as well the trendy yuppies who have climbed it for a few decades. Their ultimate ruling? Nothing. Since then, the Park Service has asked people not to climb during a few weeks in June (more specifically the summer solstice, an important time in Native American rituals) in a kind of voluntary ban. This compromise has been the status quo ever since, and studies indicate 85% of climbers honor the moratorium on climbing. Seems like a shitty "compromise" to me, but hey, I guess the Indians are used to that kind of thing...