It
is said that the Lakota name for Devil’s Tower is Matho Thipila , which is translated as “Bear Lodge”. In some
regards the formation does resemble a tipi of sorts, and especially from the
north east where the igneous intrusion appears more slender and tapered in
form.
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En route to the Tower. Some people just can't keep it in their pants.
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Many feel that the currently accepted name of “Devils Tower” is inappropriate and offensive to the native tribes and communities such as the Kiowa and Lakota who hold the Tower and the surrounding black hills as sacred terra firma. A comparison has been drawn by many (native and non-native alike) that the white man’s name for the formation would be akin to renaming a Catholic Church as the House of the Devil. I guess it could be far worse, and at least the tower was not burdened with a moniker along the lines of “the Devils Butt Sex Palace”.
It should also be noted that the
name for America’s first national monument is grammatically incorrect, but
hopefully the money saved by refraining from the use of the apostrophe has gone
towards higher causes (like education for children?).
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| First sunlit glimpse of the tower from camp. |
Regardless of what it is or should be called,
the Lodge captures the imagination and curiosity of all who lay their trying
eyes upon it. From a distance its elegant form is cloaked by the ponderosa pine
forests and grasslands of the Black Hills, but depending on the direction of approach
the edge of an innocent tree or the horizon of a golden field will give way to
the geographic anomaly. The first time I gazed upon the tower was around 8 or
so at night, at least an hour after sunset. The tower was illuminated by a waxing
moon and back lit by a starry sky. My brain was having trouble understanding
why some of the stars seemed to shine through the center of the Lodge’s outline
as I drove along, and why these stars moved so much in relation to their stoic
and solitary neighbors. Then I realized that I was seeing the headlamps of a
few wayward sailors who had probably worn out their welcome on the last few
pitches of Durrance.
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| When Subaru is life and you can't let go. |
My friends weren’t arriving for
another 4 hours, so after securing a camp site inside the monument I commenced
the back-breaking labor that defines setting up a modern back-packing tent and
starting a fire with WD-40, aka “girl scout juice”. Luckily there was a large
wood pile near the pay kiosk, likely a remnant of happily retired folks
realizing that they had brought too much. I have never had the problem of
“having too much fire wood”, and I set to work constructing a conflagration
that would have made my ancestors deeply envious. With camp in working order
and a seemingly endless supply of wood, I cooked dinner and set about
entertaining myself with a little Huck Finn. My land lord had given me a bottle
of champagne a few weeks earlier as a celebratory gesture towards passing some
exams in school, and now seemed like the right time to drain the bottles
contents. All the while the shadow of the Tower stood solitary to remind me
exactly why I had driven 6 hours across the state of Wyoming to get here.
My
comrades showed up around mid-night, and after some much needed shooting of the
shit we retired to out tents in order to engage in a more physical relationship
with the monolith the very next day.
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| Starting up assembly line on day 2 |
On day one we climbed Walt Bailey Memorial and took it to the summit, and on the second morning we climbed New Wave into Assembly Line. Definitely one of the coolest places I've been fortunate enough to climb.
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| The Bear Lodge and a waxing moon |
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