Devil's Tower, Storm Light, Wyoming

(Click image to enlarge)

I wanted to get a photograph of Devil's Tower at sunset from this location and arrived more than 30 minutes earl. While waiting, the shadow cast by dark storm clouds approaching from the west swept across the area. Devil's tower remained in sunlight a little longer than everything else due to its height. The shadow moved so quickly that I got only one lucky shot with most of the tower still illuminated.

Devil's Tower, a sacred place for many native Americans, rises 1,267 feet (386 meters) above the Belle Fourche River which meanders nearby. Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed it America's first National Monument on September 24, 1906. The tower is made of magma that solidified not far below the earth's surface. Eons of erosion have stripped away the overlying layers of rock, leaving the tower we see today.

I captured this photograph on film, and deduce that I did it in early June of 2001 or 2002. I always, and only, stopped here on my way out to Yellowstone from Ohio. I made the trip countless times in spring and fall. The green grass indicates it was springtime, and if I made the trip in the spring it was always in early June. The incredible quality of the scan indicates the image was captured on Fuji's Provia 100F, which was released in January of 2000. Since I typically had between 50 and 100 rolls on hand, I wouldn't have been using it as soon as it was released, and I began using digital cameras in 2003. That leaves 2001 and 2002. I scanned this image along with hundreds of others during the pandemic, and rediscovered it in 2026.