First thing this morning we got an appointment for tomorrow
at the recommended diesel shop so we were able to set off without having to do
anything else about the truck.
This was the first time in Wyoming for both of us…..sticker
#44 on our map of the country. We stopped first at the Vore Buffalo Jump
which is right off I-90 very soon after crossing the WY/SD border.
Construction of I-90 caused the discovery of the jump site in the late 1960’s
when engineers went into the sink hole to test for stability. The plan
was to fill in the sink hole and construct the I-90 westbound lanes over
it. (All that room and they wanted to put the lanes over a sink hole?)
It’s a sink hole because the rock in that small area has a high gypsum content
which easily erodes when water runs through it.
In the process of doing their stability tests the engineers
discovered huge quantities of buffalo bones. They moved the road a little
to the south so the site could be preserved. It turned out it was one of
the most important archaeological sites of the Late-Prehistoric Plains Indians.
The Vore family which owned the land donated about 8.5 acres to the University
of Wyoming for development into a research and education center.
The Plains Indians developed an efficient method of hunting
buffalo by driving them over a cliff into a natural sink hole. The
location had to be just right with natural draws or paths where they could
direct the animals to the jump site without spooking them. The sites also
had to be close enough to water for processing the buffalo. (Water was
part of the tanning process.) They generally hoped to kill 100 to 200
buffalo per jump. The hunts took a lot of planning and work with every
member of the group participating. With the arrival of horses the Indians
were able to kill buffalo by riding alongside and shooting them. The days
of the jumps were over.
Excavation pit with remains of 300+ years of buffalo bones.
There are 22 layers, all dated and documented. Jumps took place from the
1500’s through the early 1800’s. The jump sites were chosen according to
where the buffalo were located so there were lots of other hunts besides those
represented by the 22 layers here.
The ledge in the foreground was the destination of the
stampede so the buffalo would fly over the edge. Coming towards the pit
from this side disguised the drop because the buffalo would be looking at the
higher side across the sink hole until right before they reached the
edge. If they had come from the higher side the buffalo might have caught
on and been able to turn away. The building at the bottom protects the
excavation site.
We finally learned the difference between buffalo and bison
and were told that what we have in North America are bison. Europeans had
never seen bison before so had no name for them. They thought the animals
looked enough like the water buffalo they were familiar with to justify calling
them buffalo. However, bison have humps and long hair, both of which make
them quite different from water buffalo. In spite of all this, they are
still being called buffalo throughout the displays at the jump site. I
guess we’ve been calling them buffalo for so long they’re stuck with the name.
One of our biggest reasons for coming to the Black Hills
area was to see Devil’s Tower National Monument, 50 miles into Wyoming.
We have both wanted to see it ever since the movie Close Encounters of the
Third Kind in 1977. The tower was declared our first national
monument in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt. It’s an extremely
impressive formation, holding much spiritual importance for the Indians of the
area.
Someone kindly offered to take a picture of the two of
us. I haven’t suddenly grown 8”……I was standing on a rock. :-D
View from below the boulder field, all pieces which have
fallen from the tower in millennia of erosion.
Taken from several miles away, showing the hills and a
couple of mountains behind it. The pictures one always sees of the tower
don’t include the surrounding terrain so one doesn’t realize the tower isn’t
the tallest thing around. It is actually lower than some of the
surrounding hills which gives an idea of the amount of erosion that’s taken
place. The top of the tower was once 1.5 miles underground. It is
now 867 feet from the base to the top.
The red rock is the layer called the Spearfish formation.
The color is caused by oxidation of abundant iron in the rock.
Lakota Sioux legend says the color comes from the blood of the
buffalo. This is very near the base of the tower which is off to the
left. The town of Spearfish is a few miles away. I haven’t been
able to find out if the town was named for the formation or vice versa, but the
formation extends into several other states so it should take precedence.
In case anyone is interested in the geology of the tower,
it’s an igneous intrusion through sedimentary rock. There are several
theories on how it came about but the most likely explanation is that it’s a magma
formation called a stock which cooled before it reached the surface.
However it happened, erosion finally exposed the tower as it wore away the
softer rock around it. Erosion is constant; eventually the entire tower
will be gone.
When we got back to the RV after being gone for seven hours
we were missing a cat. We had forgotten AGAIN to be sure before we left
that Gwen was not shut in a cabinet. There she was, in Jim’s
clothes closet, where she’d pulled down a shirt and made a nest. Didn’t
seem to bother her a bit. This is about the third time it’s
happened. You’d think she’d run for the litter box after all that time
but she headed for the food bowl instead.
Tomorrow it’s off to the diesel shop. Sightseeing
plans will be made when we know if we have time to go anywhere.
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