Six hours west of Sioux Falls and six and a half hours north of Denver, Devil’s Tower, Wyoming isn’t particularly close to anything except surrounding towns like Spearfish, Spotted Horse and Fruitdale...and that’s why the aliens love it. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Richard Dreyfuss becomes obsessed with the astonishing “monolithic igneous intrusion,” sculpting an image of the geological curiosity in mashed potato long before he knows that it’s an actual place he can visit...
...but there’s no reason YOU should miss out on this lovely UFO-watching spot, which offers camping and picnic facilities between April 25 through October 27 (weather permitting).
According to the National Park Service website (and I’m paraphrasing here), the best time to see naked boobies in the park is (presumably) the first week or so of August each year, during the massive annual week-long motorcycle rally 80 miles away in Sturgis, South Dakota. Wednesday during the rally is apparently the busiest day of the year at Devil’s Tower. “Some visitors like the rally,” the NPS site explains diplomatically, “however others would rather avoid it.”
The big rock itself, designated as a U.S. National Monument by good ol’ Teddy Roosevelt in 1906, figures in the culture and folklore of nearly two dozen Native American tribes, whose folklore says the grooves in the side of Devil’s Tower were formed by the claws of a Great Bear (hence the Lakota name, Mato Tipila or “Bear Tower”).
Whether you come with bikers or alone, and whether you’re stoned or sober, the singular formation is truly awe-inspiring for nature-lovers and movie geeks alike...and for those of you in the latter category, I highly recommend the Devil’s Tower KOA campground, featuring a “Nightly showing of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (weather permitting) at dusk.”
Let me repeat that: you can sit in your campground, watching Close Encounters, and then at the point in the movie where the Mothership appears over the Tower, you can turn your head and see the actual freakin’ Tower right there in front of you...and, in my case, a shooting star shot across the night sky right at that moment, triggering massive multiple nerd-gasms in bikers, hikers, stoners and cineastes alike.
KOA can’t promise a beautifully timed astronomical event every night, of course...but even without the extra special effects, Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, is definitely a movie vacation worth taking.
