(all pages are in progress)

Badlands in South Dakota, found me shooting bison with my camera! Thought this big fellow was headed for me, but he ran right by me to have a scratch on a big old tree.

Below is the breathtaking Wyoming countryside! Devils Tower, an amazing plug of lava from an ancient eruption.

This is a sacred site for the Native Indians. Devils Tower figures in the mythology of the Plains tribes. One myth is that of 7 sisters and a bear. The sisters were playing when a big bear chased them. The girls climbed on a rock which grew like a tree, putting the girls out of reach. The bear tried to climb the tree but slid down, leaving his claw marks as grooves in the tower. The girls, high on the rock, became a group of 7stars (the Pleiades). From this myth the Kiowa called it "Tso-aa," meaning "tree rock."

Devils Tower, rising 1,267 feet (386 meters) over low hills and the Belle Fourche River, is one of the United State's most famous and distinctive natural landmarks. It is also a magnet for climbers who come to ascend over 150 routes.

Devils Tower is composed of phonolite porphyry, a grayish rock studded with feldspar crystals. As the magma cooled underground, it formed hexagonal or six-sided columns although columns have from four to seven sides. The last large column fell about 10,000 years ago. The next one to go is probably the Leaning Column on the Durrance Route. A park analysis in 2006 decided that the column continues to be safe for climbing. Similar formations of columnar basalt are found at Devil's Postpile National Monument in California.

Interesting to know that Devils, is not mis-spelled. In the proclamation signed by President Theodore Roosevelt, the apostrophe in Devil's was inadvertently dropped so that the site was officially named Devils instead of Devil's. The misspelling was never corrected, hence the current spelling.

The first ascent was on July 4, 1893 when cowboys William Rogers and W.L. Ripley climbed a ladder of wooden stakes pounded into cracks with lengths lumber attached. A crowd of 500 people watched their daring ascent. Afterwards a party of five climbed the ladder. Alice Ripley, wife of W.L. Ripley, climbed the ladder two years later, becoming the first woman to stand atop it. A dozen other people also ascended the ladder prior to the climbing ascent.

I know this page is devoted to animals, but it is hard to capture them without their stunning watchtower.

This was one of the last actual 'rolls' of film I used before I went digital!