2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 10; Devils Tower National Monument

After joining I-90/US 14 westbound in Spearfish I headed into Wyoming. My next destination was Devils Tower National Monument in Crook County.

Part 9 of this blog series can be found here:

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 10; Devil's Tower National Monument

My route to Devil's Tower was via US 14 after the split from I-90 in Sun Dance, WY 24, and WY 110. From a distance on WY 24 Devil's Tower first comes into view from the highway.

WY 24 is a mostly east/west highway but has a minor northward jog towards the Belle Fourche River and WY 110. Devil's Tower is accessed from WY 24 by taking WY 110 into the National Monument Boundary about 3 miles in a loop to the Visitor Center.

Devil's Tower National Monument is a 867 foot butte made of laccolith that for a lack of a better word "towers" over the surrounding the terrain. Devil's Tower is thought to have been formed by volcanic intrusion forcing igneous rock through sedimentary rock. The Devils' Tower is part of the Bear Lodge Mountains which is a sub-range of the much larger Black Hills region. Devil's Tower was set aside as a National Monument in 1906 but became something a popular culture icon thanks to being featured in the 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Devil's Tower is a surprisingly small National Monument. The Tower Trail completely circles Devil's Tower but the best views are near the visitor center on the western flank.

After leaving Devil's Tower National Monument I continued east on WY 24 towards South Dakota. WY 24 largely follows the course of the Belle Fourche River to Hulett where the junction with WY 112 is located. WY 24 picks up a junction with WY 111 in the village of Aladdin.

Aladdin was a coal mining town that was founded in the 1890s. During it's peak Aladdin had a population of about 200 residents which had declined to an advertised 15 back in 2016. There was only one open business in Aladdin which seems to have multiple duty as a Post Office, gas station, general store, and mineral shop.

I continued on WY 24 to the South Dakota State Line where the roadway becomes SD 34 in Butte County. My stay for the night was on Belle Fourche on US 85 near the junction with US 212. My next stop the following morning was Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota on the back end of a long haul on US 85.

Part 11 of this series can be found here:

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 11; Lonely US Route 85 in South Dakota and North Dakota

Comments

Hawaii Route 8930

Hawaii Route 8930 is a 2.5-mile State Highway on the Island of O'hau. Hawaii Route 8930 is aligned over Kualakai Parkway over the course of its entire alignment south from Interstate H-1 to Kapolei Parkway. Hawaii Route 8930 is one of the newest Hawaii Routes only having been completed during 2010. This page is part of the Gribblenation O'ahu Highways page. All Gribblenation and Roadwaywiz media related to the highway system of O'ahu can be found at the link below: https://www.gribblenation.org/p/gribblenation-oahu-highways-page.html Part 1; the history of Hawaii Route 8930 The history of Hawaii Route 8930 is brief given it is a modern facility. Hawaii Route 8930 and what was known as "North-South Road" were built to facilitate the developing areas of Kapolei on western O'ahu. According to hawaiihighways.com the first stage of Hawaii Route 8930 was completed from Kapolei Parkway north to Farrington Highway as a four-lane highway during November...

Madera County Road 607 and the Stockton-Los Angeles Road

Madera County Road 607 is an approximately seven-mile rural unsurfaced highway which spans from Road 600 near Raymond west to Road 29. Road 607 west from Raymond Road Cemetery (established in 1905) is part of the Stockton-Los Angeles Road corridor surveyed in 1853. The corridor lies in the gap between Fresno Crossing at the Fresno River west to Newton's Crossing at the Chowchilla River. The Buchanan Copper Mine would be along what is now Road 607 in the namesake Buchanan Hollow during July 1863. The Buchanan Mine is thought to have once had a population of between 1,000-1,500 residents by the early 1870s. Copper prices would decline in the decade after the Civil War and much of the activity at Buchanan shifted towards cattle ranching. The last businesses in the community would shutter during World War II and it is now a true ghost town. Part 1; the history of Madera County Road 607 and the Stockton-Los Angeles Road What is now Road 607 was a component of the larger Sto...

Paper Highways; Interstate H-4 through downtown Honolulu

The Hawaiian Island of O'ahu is home to four Interstate Highways; H-1, H-2, H-3 and H-201. Had history gone slightly differently during the 1960s a fifth Interstate corridor on O'ahu could have been constructed through downtown Honolulu and the neighborhood of Waikiki. The proposed corridor of Interstate H-4 can be seen above as it was presented by the Hawaii Department of Transportation during October 1968 . This page is part of the Gribblenation O'ahu Highways page. All Gribblenation and Roadwaywiz media related to the highway system of O'ahu can be found at the link below: https://www.gribblenation.org/p/gribblenation-oahu-highways-page.html The history of proposed Interstate H-4 The corridor of Interstate H-4 was conceived as largely following what is now Hawaii Route 92 on Nimitz Highway and Ala Moana Boulevard. Prior to the Statehood the first signed highways within Hawaii Territory came into existence during World War II. Dur...

Gribblenation

Search This Blog