1.3 Miles Roundtrip Loop

Level, Paved Trail That Takes You Around The Tower

The coolest way to experience the igneous rock butte that juts up out of the black hills is to be right up against it and that’s with the Tower Trail. The 1.3 mile paved trail encircles the tower and gives you impressive views of the boulder fields, the columns of old magma, and even rock climbers brave enough to do some impressive crack climbing.

Ever since I was a little kid and obsessed with aliens and watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind way too often (as an adult, it’s a very sad movie, actually), I’ve been possessed by the overwhelming desire to come to this place. Hold up…

I couldn’t wait to adventure around Devils Tower once I began exploring the west because there really is something mysterious about it. Sure, Spielberg’s movie is fun but the Cheyenne have a great story about its existence that involves infidelity with a giant bear who slaps the woman he’d been… seeing (and leaving scratches all down her back) after the woman tells her husband of her wrongs. This slap turns the woman into a bear and then the big bear gets angry and chases the Cheyenne warrior men and the husband who then pray for some help. They receive it when the rock they’re on grows upwards but the bear is still chasing them. He climbed up the tower with his claws which is what causes the geologic formation known as columnar jointing but once at the top, the Cheyenne warriors kill the big bear, the woman makes the top of the rock her home, and the rest is history.

The Crow have a similar story but with less adultery. Some girls climbed a rock to escape a bear and The Great Spirit grew the rock and the bear clawed away, forming the side of the tower. The bear couldn’t make it, the rock kept growing, and… the two girls are still stuck up there.

Much like the southwest, this place has red rocks, sandstone formations, a history of water and magma, and is a gorgeous wonder to explore. Although, its geological origin is still a mystery and the water that formed it, also destroyed the evidence so we may never know how it was formed.