“Which way are you going?” I ask, trying to conceal my lack of knowledge about any of the routes and knowing full well I would never venture what they are about to do.
“Left arm of the south face this time,” says the man. He obviously does not desire the delay of conversation but does volunteer that he had made several climbs the summer he worked here.
I hold them with another question: is there anything interesting on top?
“Terrific view. Grass on the summit; lots of chipmunks; once a rattlesnake was sighted. Well, we better get moving.”
“Good luck,” I call after them. The expression seems a lame wish for rock climbers. Soon they are brightly clad specks weaving through the trees. Looking up at the summit that towers above them, I wonder how a chipmunk or snake could have possibly gotten there—perhaps only by escaping the talons of an eagle or hawk. But could that happen?
More than 1,000 ascents of Devils Tower are now made each year. The almost casual manner in which experienced climbers regard the structure—often scaling it to keep in shape for “difficult” climbs—would have astounded early explorers, who regarded it as unscalable.
Shrill, rapid cries of a prairie falcon echo from the Tower wall. Although hidden from my view by the pines, its circling flight is revealed by its bursts of screams. It scolds the climbers who are now pressing upward and perhaps invading the security of its nest site. But the commotion soon dies away, indicating that the sharp-eyed falcon is more annoyed than threatened. Should the climbers inadvertently come close to the nest, however, the protective bird would repeatedly dive at the intruders in an attempt to drive them away, a distraction I would not relish.
I continue down the trail, which gradually drops toward the river. The pines yield to communities of deciduous vegetation interspersed with grassy meadows. A whitetail deer stands at the far edge of the narrow meadow the trail is about to enter. Not yet aware of my presence, it continues to browse the succulent new growth of a chokecherry.
Were it not for the meadows and wooded ravines that surround the higher reaches of the pine forest, the Monument could not support as many deer as it does. Deer like a mix of woodland and meadow. The dense cover of shrub thickets, canopied by closely spaced elm, chokecherry, hawthorn, and other trees, offers sanctuary and browse. The nearby meadows provide essential diet supplements of grasses and herbs.
As I move on, the deer dashes away. A cottontail bounds across the trail and overhead, on a long, twisted branch of a burr oak, a fox squirrel scurries upward to safety. A brown thrasher scolds momentarily but soon resumes its complex song. Its music is as various in shading and structure as the many leaf shapes that can be discovered in its habitat.