Article on Devil's Tower (of "Close Encounters")
From: Stig_Agermose@online.pol.dk (Stig Agermose)
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1998 15:13:50 -0800
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Source: The Arizona Daily Star,
http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/1109cv2.html
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Monday, 9 November 1998
Ed Severson:
Bless mountains for pulling us up from the valleys
***
Used to be cowboys and Indians. Now it's climbers and Indians. I'm one
of the climbers.
As usual, the dispute still centers on land, in this case Northern
Wyoming's Devils Tower, a giant stump of rock rising out of the
National Monument of the same name. To Plains Indians, it's sacred. For
many of them, it's a place of worship. They think people should stay
off it.
I agree Devils Tower is sacred. But I believe people belong on
mountains. To many, like myself, they provide spiritual sustenance that
you can't get any place else.
The Plains Indians have stood in awe of the tower for millennia. For
me, it's been about 20 years. It started one evening in 1977 when I sat
gaping in a Tucson drive-in as Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of
the Third Kind" unreeled.
You may recall that as the movie opens, some very weird stuff is coming
down. An ocean ocean-going vessel turns up in the Gobi Desert. Power
lineman Richard Dreyfuss gets zapped with the "Twilight Zone"
treatment: Weird lights, power failures, UFOs. He flips out.
Something inside him draws him to Devils Tower. He finds himself among
crowds of crazies like himself. Suddenly, a spacecraft the size of
Yuma, flashing like a giant arcade game, slides in out of the night.
The tower gleams like a throne.
Turns out friendly ETs have breezed in to sweep the pilgrims away on a
journey to the stars. Hollywood myth-making. Sure. But, to me,
Spielberg put his finger on the beauty and mystery that every mountain
possesses.
Fast forward to 1994. I stared up at Devils Tower. A vertical piece of
real estate, it pops straight up nearly 900 feet right out of the
middle of nowhere. An eon or two ago, Indian tribes tried to explain
it.
In one version, the tower was a tree stump that rose out of the ground
to provide safety for seven sisters. Old story: Brother changes into
bear, pursues siblings. Frustrated, the beast claws the trunk, leaving
the fluted sides that remain to this day. The sisters? They become the
stars of the Big Dipper. Colorful. Exciting. Happy ending.
When you think about it, it's not that much different from Spielberg's
take on the mountain.
For more reasons than you can count, the tower pulls in the crowds.
Upward of 200,000 visitors show up each year to gawk, snap photos and
send post cards home. Many pay the tower the ultimate American tribute
by purchasing T-shirts that feature its image.
Then there are the 3,000 or so, who annually attempt to scale it. About
half succeed. The routes up its sides, range from the difficult to the
ghastly.
Climbers ascend the cracks between the huge four-, five- and six-sided
columns that score its face. Those who wish to gain the summit must
coax safe passage from the tower by performing a slow and stately
ballet.
With each careful move, their bodies mirror exactly the shape of the
rock and their own acute sense of self-preservation. The tenuous
connection of climber to rock is, at the very least, one of life's most
intimate relationships.
"Infantile selfishness," John Krist complained. In an Oct. 11 column in
the Star's Comment section, Krist, an editorial writer for the Ventura
County Star in California, sided with the Indians.
For centuries, he noted, they've worshiped at the tower during the
month of June. Throughout the area, they leave little prayer bundles
tied to the bushes and trees. Wanting to keep the place off limits
during their ceremonies, the Indians were able to get the National Park
Service to call for a voluntary ban on climbing during June.
Climbing groups sued, and a federal judge lifted the ban. The reason:
Violated the separation of church and state. "A climber who neither
fathoms nor respects a sacred obligation to the rock deserves exile to
a gym," Crist thundered.
True. Such a climber is a jerk.
It was around the middle of October - well past June, John! - when I
wedged myself into a crack to inchworm my way up the tower's face. I'd
hired a guide to protect me from my incompetence.
The way I see it, we've all got geographic magnets inside us. Some
folks are drawn to the desert, others to the seashore. Some are wedded
body and soul to the city's pavement. Even though I'm not a skilled
climber, I still can't stay away from mountains. Each has its own
allure.
The tower was once a buried peak of liquid. About 55 million years ago,
molten lava had boiled up through one of the Earth's arteries and
hardened just beneath the surface. Surrounding sediments eroded away,
laying bare the massive pinnacle that we see today. It is the frozen
blood of our planet. To climb it is to touch, grasp and embrace the
chilled remnants of our own distant past.
After several hours, I sprawled exhausted on the domed summit. No
spacecraft hummed in from the heavens. But you can count on it:
Something unique happens on every mountain. Clouds slowly rolled past.
It felt as if I were sitting on a flying carpet that moved slowly over
the autumn countryside below. The mountain hadn't budged an inch. Just
felt that way.
To be sure, such a memory is not the same as returning from a rumbling
peak bearing two stone tablets. But mountains offer small gifts to
everyone. They are the little blessings that keep pulling us up from
the valleys.
Ed Severson is a features writer for The Arizona Daily Star.
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RELEVANCE OF THIS MESSAGE: Mysterious places
Index: Devil's Tower (#1)
Created: Nov 9, 1998
