Dogtown: Devil's Tower, Wyoming

View from our camp of the tower, the tower carving Belle Fourche River,
prairie dog town (beyond river) and approaching thunderstorm.

August 30-31

My interlude between the sublime Yellowstone and the mystic Black Hills was an ordeal of elevation and weather. Sometimes the apparent shortest distance between two spots on the Rand McNally can be fraught with invisible ordeal. My goal for the day's travel was a campsite high in the Bighorn National Forest. It seemed like an easy three hour drive but, in part, due to my aversion to the limitations caused by making reservations, I was caught with my figurative pants down

The route started out on a positive note by taking me out through the northeast gate of Yellowstone, through an alpine wonderland called the Beartooth highway, which had been enthusiastically (and deservedly) recommended to me by a number of fellow travelers along my route.

Stormy day on the Beartooth Highway, Montana

Beartooth Pass Summit via Beartooth Highway, 10,947 ft. 

American pika, Beartooth Pass

Down from Beartooth, northeast to Billings then back south, across the Bighorn River, up and into the mountains and a choice high elevation campsite. Things for which I was not prepared: a raging thunderstorm right over the mountains; the pitch of the climb and Pagoo's reaction to it (base speed = 25 mph); Harry's stress reaction to the lugging low gear; and lack of available campsites absent a reservation. So a stressed out beagle and I climbed a 10,000 foot mountain only to descend the other side and limp into a grubby campground in Dayton, MT after dark.  After checking in to the patch of grass that was my campsite with scary Ma and Pa Dayton, the owners of the campground, Harry and I pop up Pagoo and bundle into bed. As I look up I see moonlight streaming in unobstructed through the roof---I have lost a vent cover. Mercifully, my bedding remained dry, duck tape is close at hand and I had suffered no greater mechanical issues during the ordeal. On the scale of rough days, probably pretty mild (not that I want to tempt fate--I suffered! Suffered, I tell you!).

Dayton may not have been my first choice for an overnight stay, but it did place us very near the doorstep for our next destination: Devil's Tower. Made famous by its integral role in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, this strange rock formation looms alone in the landscape and is visible for miles as we approach.

The place has an aura of deep mystery and I find it nearly impossible to stop staring at the tower. Harry finds it completely impossible to stop staring at the prairie dog town that fans out from its base.

Squirrel!

As we pull through the entrance, quickly stake out a campsite with a view of the tower, the Belle Fourche River and the 40-acre prairie dog town, all the misery of the prior day's travel evaporates. This places feels like a tonic, which is not surprising considering its cultural and spiritual relevance to more than twenty North American tribes. There are several myths regarding its origin, my favorite being the Kiowa legend where seven little girls escape a bear attack when the tower rises and carries them to the sky where they become the Pleiades.

After some quick exploration and an assessment of dog friendliness (not very), Harry and I are eager to have a campfire, a task at which, with the exception of my first days in Mendocino, I have utterly failed on this trip. Tonic or no, there is to be no exception here. Just as the fire lights, a thunderstorm that had been looming for hours hits in full force and drives us into Pagoo. Fortunately the view is beautiful, the sound of rain and thunder thrilling and Pagoo proves to be a snug and dry shelter through the storm.

The next morning, we awake to sunshine and the prairie dog town is becoming active as the ground warms. I have hesitantly told a few friends that I long to see a wild prairie dog town, hesitant perhaps because I am so openly disdainful of the obsession of California tourists with our overfed ground squirrels. Maybe they are ubiquitous and ordinary to those from the plains states but, if you must pick favorites amongst the Sciuridae, this squirrel is a rock star. The benefit of their colonies to over 150 other plains species imparts to the humble prairie dog the designation of keystone species. New research suggests a surprising complexity to their communication, in particular as it relates to potential threats to the colony. The roadside dogs beneath Devil's Tower are habituated to people and conspicuously indifferent to beagles in cars. Harry could barely contain himself and quivered with excitement at every movement. The result is any easy photographic window into life in the dogtown and your dose of keystone squirrel for the day:

40-acre black-tailed prairie dog town, Devil's Tower
National Monument, MT

The town is alive with vocalizations

First a greeting...

....then a scuffle

The jump-yip. Scroll down in this article to read about the newest
theory behind this characteristic behavior.

Feeding any wildlife, and prairie dogs in particular, is forbidden in the park. Of course, there are always the idiot rule breakers that don't care about the well being of either the wildlife or their children:

Family feeding cheetos to prairie dogs

I tried to get the ranger to come scold them but was instead encouraged by the park dispatch to take the law into my own hands. No problem---deputize me. When I asked the mom if she knew that prairie dogs carry bubonic (sylvatic) plague, she said she did, and handed her child a cheeto to hand feed the cuddly little disease vector. So I had to say the ranger was on his way---and so they bundled their charming family back into the SUV and sped off to braid bison tails in Yellowstone. My misanthropy and general lack of respect for the common sense of the general public remains intact.

Too many cheetos?

Under the watchful eye of Devil's Tower I was able to check another species off my road trip bucket list. The strange tower, mythic energy, warm meadows alive with keystone business and empty campground were all the perfect remedy to my stressful transition out of Yellowstone and a mindful introduction to the numinous Black Hills.

Devil's Tower through the interactive art piece, Sacred Circle of Smoke by
Junkyo Muto