Devils Tower National Monument
As a nod to his senior year theatre project, we made the trek to Devils Tower National Monument … and Mak discovered that Wyoming does indeed exist (that is a joke, of course, and part of his project). Amazing that this geological gem was discovered over a hundred years ago in remote Wyoming and established as our first National Monument. We both wish they would change the name to Bear Lodge.
“Devils Tower (also known as Bear Lodge Butte)[8] is a butte, possibly laccolithic, composed of igneous rock in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the Black Hills, near Hulett and Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle Fourche River. It rises 1,267 feet (386 m) above the Belle Fourche River, standing 867 feet (265 m) from summit to base. The summit is 5,112 feet (1,559 m) above sea level.
Devils Tower was the first United States national monument, established on September 24, 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt.[9]The monument's boundary encloses an area of 1,347 acres
The name Devil's Tower originated in 1875 during an expedition led by Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, when his interpreter reportedly misinterpreted a native name to mean "Bad God's Tower".[10] All information signs in that area use the name "Devils Tower", following a geographic naming standard whereby the apostrophe is omitted.[11]
Native American names for the monolith include "Bear's House" or "Bear's Lodge" (or "Bear's Tipi", "Home of the Bear", "Bear's Lair"); Cheyenne, Lakota: Matȟó Thípila, Crow: Daxpitcheeaasáao ("Home of Bears"[12]), "Aloft on a Rock" (Kiowa), "Tree Rock", "Great Gray Horn",[10] and "Brown Buffalo Horn" (Lakota: Ptehé Ǧí).[citation needed]
In 2005, a proposal to recognize several Native American ties through the additional designation of the monolith as Bear Lodge National Historic Landmark met with opposition from United States Representative Barbara Cubin, arguing that a "name change will harm the tourist trade and bring economic hardship to area communities".[13] In November 2014, Arvol Looking Horse proposed renaming the geographical feature "Bear Lodge" and submitted the request to the United States Board on Geographic Names. A second proposal was submitted to request that the U.S. acknowledge what it described as the "offensive" mistake in keeping the current name and to rename the monument and sacred site Bear Lodge National Historic Landmark. The formal public comment period ended in fall 2015. Local state senator Ogden Driskill opposed the change.[14][15] The name was not changed.
Our greeters outside the park. Amazing nature symmetry …Longhorn Cattle and Bison together in the range.
My exploration in the parks has made me a Lichen Fan! Lichens are a complex life form that is a symbiotic partnership of two separate organisms, a fungus and an alga. The dominant partner is the fungus, which gives the lichen the majority of its characteristics, from its thallus shape to its fruiting bodies. The alga can be either a green alga or a blue-green alga, otherwise known as cyanobacteria. Many lichens will have both types of algae.
