(CSE) Mato Tipila EarthCache

American Indian legends tell of six Sioux girls who were picking flowers when they were chased by bears. Feeling sorry for them, the Great Spirit raised the ground beneath the girls. The bears tried to climb the rock, but fell off, leaving their scratch marks on the sides.

Another version tells of how two Sioux boys wandered far from their village when Mato the bear, a huge creature that had claws the size of teepee poles, spotted them, and wanted to eat them for breakfast. He was almost upon them when the boys prayed to Wakan Tanka the Creator to help them. They rose up on a huge rock, while Mato tried to get up from every side, leaving huge scratch marks as he did. Finally, he sauntered off, disappointed and discouraged. Wanblee, the eagle, helped the boys off the rock and back to their village.

The Tower is sacred to over 20 Native American Plains tribes, including the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Kiowa. Because of this, many Indian leaders objected to climbers ascending the monument, as they felt this was a desecration. The climbers felt that they had a right to climb the Tower, since it is on federal land. A compromise was eventually reached with a voluntary climbing ban during the month of June when the tribes are conducting ceremonies around the monument. Climbers are asked, but not required, to stay off the Tower in June. Approximately 85% of climbers honor the ban and voluntarily choose not to climb the Tower during the month of June.

Many years ago, fur trappers may have visited Devils Tower, but they left no written evidence of having done so. The first documented visitors were several members of Captain W. F. Raynold's Yellowstone Expedition who arrived in 1859. Sixteen years later, Colonel Richard I. Dodge led a U.S. Geological Survey party to the massive rock formation and coined the name Devils Tower. Recognizing its unique characteristics, Congress designated the area a U.S. forest reserve in 1892 and in 1906 Devils Tower became the nation's first national monument.

All information signs and references use the name "Devils Tower". If Colonel Dodge intended the name "Devils Tower" to refer to a single devil, then proper grammar would indicate that the monument be called "Devil's Tower". It has been said that the apostrophe was omitted due to a clerical error on early governmental papers, and the version without the apostrophe became its legal, and therefore official, name[citation needed]. On the other hand, use of the plural "devils" may have been intended, either by Colonel Dodge or by the government agencies involved in establishing the monument; in which case there is no grammatical error in the name.

On July 4, 1893, local rancher William Rogers became the first person to complete the climb after constructing a ladder of wooden pegs driven into cracks in the rock face. Technical rock climbing techniques were first used to ascend the Tower in 1937 when Fritz Wiessner reached the summit with a small party from the American Alpine Club.

Today hundreds of climbers scale the sheer rock walls each summer; each lava column defines its own climbing routes, whose difficulties range from easy to some of the hardest in the world. On some routes the gap between columns is just narrow enough to bridge with stretched-out legs, so the climber ascends doing "the splits" all the way

Most of the landscape surrounding Devils Tower is composed of sedimentary rocks. The oldest rocks visible in Devils Tower National Monument were laid down in a shallow sea during the Triassic period, 225 to 195 million years ago. This dark red sandstone and maroon siltstone, interbedded with shale, can be seen along the Belle Fourche River. Oxidation of iron minerals causes the redness of the rocks. This rock layer is known as the Spearfish formation. Above the Spearfish formation is a thin band of white gypsum, called the Gypsum Spring Formation. This layer of gypsum was deposited during the Jurassic period, 195 to 136 million years ago. Created as sea levels and climates repeatedly changed, gray-green shales (deposited in low-oxygen environments such as marshes) were interbedded with fine-grained sandstones, limestones, and sometimes thin beds of red mudstone. This composition, called the Stockade Beaver member, is part of the Sundance formation.

The Hulett Sandstone member, also part of the Sundance formation, is composed of yellow fine-grained sandstone. Resistant to weathering, it forms the nearly vertical cliffs which encircle the Tower itself.

About 65 million years ago, during the Tertiary period, the Rocky Mountains and the Black Hills were uplifted. Molten magma rose through the crust, intruding into the already existing sedimentary rock layers.

The listed coordinates are to the general vicinity of the earth cache. Stay on the trail and do not climb on the rocks unless you have a climbers permit. Do not remove or touch the ceremonial cloth hanging on the trees.

To get credit for the find, post a picture of yourself (face included) with any part of the Devils Tower in the back ground (picture must be taken from or near the trail around the Devils Tower), and please answer the following questions. This information can be found on the information signs at the begining of the trail.

1. What type of hard igneous rock is the tower made of?

2. The Tower was once covered by three different types of sediment formations that was eroded away by time, what are they?

This Earth Cache placed with permission of the Devils Tower park Superintendant and Chief Ranger. A special thanks to them for allowing this educational Earth Cache in their parks.

Cav Scout has earned GSA's highest level

Do not log this EC unless you have answered the questions and have a picture ready to post! Logs with no photo of the actual cacher logging the find or failure to answer questions or negative comments will result in a log deletion without notice. Exceptions will be considered if you contact me first (I realize sometimes we forget our cameras or the batteries die). You must post a photo at the time of logging your find. If your picture is not ready then wait until you have a photo.

Sources of information for the EarthCache quoted from the Devils Tower National Park website. I have used sources available to me by using google search to get information for this earth cache. I am by no means a geologist. I use books, internet, and ask questions about geology just like 99.9 percent of the geocachers who create these great Earth Caches. I enjoy Earth Caches and want people to get out and see what I see every time I go and explore this great place we live in.