We reached northeastern Wyoming and Devils Tower National Monument in early May on our RV road trip through national parks. I’d had a “close encounter” with the stone monolith back in 2018, but my husband had never seen it. As we approached, it looked picture perfect, with bison and longhorn cattle posing on the rolling hills, under a blue sky with fluffy white clouds.

The animals are fenced in, not running wild, but they bring to mind the old cowboy song Home on the Range.

The bison were shedding their woolly winter coats.

Looks like a life of ease.

We set out on the 1.3-mile hike around the base of the tower under increasingly cloudy skies. Prayer flags tied to trees by American Indian visitors add scraps of color to the green and brown landscape of ponderosa pines.

Several Indian tribes view the rock as a sacred place, and some take issue with the Anglo name Devils Tower. Bear Lodge is one of their names for it.

Whatever its name, the corduroy-ridged tower is a spectacular and solitary place.

Devils Tower is made of igneous rock, formed by magma, that’s been exposed through the process of erosion over millions of years.

Sitting high on a hill, it gains even more prominence.

At the base of the hill, hundreds of prairie dogs live in burrows, whistling and chirping their warnings. We stopped to walk a trail here under increasingly ominous skies. Let me tell you, it was windy and dark up at the tower, and we’d hustled down to our vehicle, fearful of lightning near the exposed tower.

For anyone curious about our rig, there it is! We were towing a rented RV behind our Ford F-150 pickup. Literally our home on the range.

Watching the prairie dogs pop in and out of their mounded burrows provided several minutes of amusement.

The trail led to a marble sculpture called Circle of Sacred Smoke by Japanese artist Junkyu Muto.

It frames a view of the stone tower on the hill.

From another angle, a heart appears.

Devils Tower is a beautiful place, and just as fascinating on my second visit as on my first.

I did not make a repeat visit to nearby Mount Rushmore, though I’d have liked to see the Black Hills again. But I needed a break from touring the day my husband saw them. Afterward I was rested and ready as we headed into South Dakota’s famous badlands.

Up next: The forlorn hills of Badlands National Park in South Dakota, plus a stop at iconic Wall Drug. For a look back at the wall of bones at Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado, click here.

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Digging Deeper

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