Devils Tower (
Lakota:
Mato Tipila, which means “Bear Lodge”) is a
monolithic igneous intrusion or
volcanic neck located in the
Black Hills near
Hulett and
Sundance in
Crook County, northeastern
Wyoming, above the
Belle Fourche River. It rises dramatically 1,267 feet (386 m) above the surrounding terrain and the summit is 5,112 feet (1,558 m) above sea level.
Devils Tower was the first declared
United States National Monument, established on September 24, 1906, by President
Theodore Roosevelt. The Monument's boundary encloses an area of 1,347 acres (5.45 km2).
In recent years about 1% of the Monument's 400,000 annual visitors
climb Devils Tower, mostly through
traditional climbing techniques.
