Thursday, September 15, 2011

Sep 15 – To Devils Tower


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Today started out bright and sunny, then got a bit cloudy but no rain.

The first hour of the day was tough on the RV. Ten Sleep is at 4000 foot elevation. We had to climb up the Bighorn Mountains over Power Pass which is at almost 10000 feet. We creeped up the road in beautiful Ten Sleep Canyon.

You can see the canyon in the distance below.

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Made it. A record climb and elevation for the RV (so far).

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Going down with the mountains the the background.

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It was kind of weird to be above the clouds in the distance.

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Then we drove across a high plain. There were clouds in a valley off to the right.

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Once we got on I-90 it was a very boring mostly flat plain.

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The first view of our destination.

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The view from our campsite. I am sure everyone recognizes it from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

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We dropped the RV off in the site and drove up to the visitor’s center to do the one mile hike around the base. Even with a paved path it was hard to walk because you always wanted to stare upwards.

The tower is made up of 4,5,6 or 7 sided basalt columns. Although there is a lot of rubble at the bottom and a lot of gaps on the tower, none have fallen in recorded history.

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We loved looking at the curved columns at the base.

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There were lots of climbers on the tower. All you have to do is fill out a form and away you go. When we got there, we saw these guys at the top. It only took them about 1/2 hour to come back down.

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The guy spread eagle in the picture below was having a tough time. It was weird but we could clearly hear his partner encouraging him.

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They are about 1/3 in from the right just above the trees in the picture below. By this time it was kind of late in the day and they had a long way to go.

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A Ford Cobra club was visiting. Very cool cars.

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