![]() ![]() NW winds predominant, which are the most fierce here. The temperature ranges from -8oC in winter until 31☌ in summer. The most rainy period is during April and May and a little less features March, June and October. Weather there can be extreme and can change quickly. Visitors are advised not to approach these creatures due to the risk of contracting rabies if bitten. The meadows on the approach roads to the Tower are the home to colonies of Prairie Dogs. Annual information about closings is available on the National Park Service web site. Prairie falcons nest on the monument, and some climbing trails are closed yearly to protect the nestlings. In more recent decades, the Park Service has undertaken prescribed burns to try and restore the rich, diverse ecosystem that once prevailed. But without the natural cycle renewal caused by (natural) forest fires, the Ponderosa pine has taken over, depriving any smaller ground plants from getting needed sunlight. Forest and Park Services, as a means of avoiding fires spreading to settled areas and the burning down of the valuable and beautiful forests. The lack of diversity was caused by fire suppression by ranchers, settlers, and actually the U.S. You might notice that the forest rolling along the hills is a little repetitive. The tower is fully surrounded by constantly eroding hexangular basalt columns (in fact, the same columnar basalt found at the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, as well as at Devils Postpile National Monument in California). ![]() Over the epochs since, the softer sandstones and shales that covered and surrounded the intrusion (which had pushed them up), leaving us with this alien-attracting, arrestive tower. The tower itself is the eroded remnant of a giant laccolith-an igneous intrusion produced by rising molten magma exploiting a weak point in the existing sedimentary rock layers about 65 million years ago. The one obvious contrast in landscape here is jarringly weird, and indeed the main attraction! Devils Tower is one of the world's most striking natural monoliths in no small part for its sheer, vertical form, and its dramatic contrast with the rolling prairie extending in all directions for seemingly endless distances (the rolling prairie being essentially a lower extension of the nearby Black Hills in South Dakota). Devils Tower National Monument is administered by the National Park Service, a part of the Department of Interior. Production designer Joe Alves traveled the west looking for a proper landmark and stumbled across the obscure park finding it a perfect fit for use in the film. cavalry scouting party reached the tower in 1876 and incorrectly translated the name to mean "Bad God's Tower" and thus its present name remains.ĭevils Tower is probably best known as the location of the alien-human rendezvous point in Steven Spielberg's Oscar winning 1977 Science Fiction film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The youths then were taken up and became what is known as the seven sisters constellation. The bear tried to reach them, with its claws carving the fluted columns into the rock. Imploring the great spirit to save them, a rock they were standing on began to rise into the air. "Mateo Tipi" translates as "Bear Lodge", as the Indian legend revolves around the creation of the tower as a refuge for a group of Indian youths being pursued by a giant bear. The Tower was known as "Mateo Tipi" by American Indians of the region, and is considered sacred. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |