We visited Devils Tower in June 2025, the fifth stop of our Wild West Loop RV road trip.
Devils Tower is one of those places we’ve all seen in magazines, on TV and even in movies for as long as we can remember. Its unique shape towers (sorry for the pun) over the otherwise fairly flat prairie.
Devils Tower had been on Stefan’s bucket list for a long time, and it fit perfectly into our summer 2025 trip between the Black Hills of South Dakota and Cody, Wyoming, close to Yellowstone National Park. We didn’t have much time to spare as we made our way west, but Devils Tower seemed like the kind of place where you could experience most of it in one afternoon.
Despite having seen the tower in dozens, if not hundreds, of travel photos over the years, nothing can really prepare you for seeing it in person, from that first glance of it peeking over the horizon to standing at its base.
In this post, I’ll talk about how we fit Devils Tower into our Western road trip, where we stayed and what we did with one afternoon. I’ll also cover some of the history and a few quirky facts about the tower. And because we travel full time in a big rig, I’ll finish with some tips for RVers, because parking a fifth wheel here takes a bit of planning.
Getting There: The Natural Stop Between the Black Hills and Yellowstone
Devils Tower was just a quick two hours (111 miles) from our last stop at Custer’s Gulch RV Park in Custer, South Dakota, where we spent our days exploring Custer State Park and the Black Hills. The owners of the Devils Tower KOA weren’t exaggerating when they told Cowboy State Daily that you can leave Mount Rushmore in the morning, arrive a little after lunch with the whole afternoon free, then get up the next morning and make Cody, the eastern gateway to Yellowstone, without a brutal travel day. That’s exactly how it played out for us.
The drive from Custer was easy, with great roads along the way. The best part of the ride is when Devils Tower appears on the horizon for the first time and then gets bigger and bigger as you navigate the last few miles.
Definitely have someone ready with a camera!
Where We Stayed: Devils Tower / Black Hills KOA
We booked the Devils Tower / Black Hills KOA Journey, which offers tons of amenities (which we didn’t take advantage of). The campground sits right outside the monument’s entrance gate, along the Belle Fourche River, on land that’s part of the historic Campstool Ranch. The Driskill family has owned the ranch for six generations. In terms of location, it couldn’t be better, since it sits basically at the base of Devils Tower. The drive from the KOA to the park’s visitor center is just 3 miles.
The real selling point, however, is the view. Devils Tower rises above the campground, and you can see it from nearly everywhere in the park. We had great views right from our site, and watching the light change on the columns throughout the day was one of the highlights of this stop.
A few other things worth knowing:
- Close Encounters every night. The KOA shows Close Encounters of the Third Kind outdoors every evening, with the real tower standing behind the screen. Parts of the film were shot on this property in 1976, which makes it even better. We did watch Close Encounters during our stay, but we chose to do it from the comfort of our own living room. The June evening air was a bit chilly for our taste.
- Amenities. There’s a restaurant, a gift and fudge shop, a heated pool, mini golf, a playground and a nightly hayride through the ranch for a small fee. Since we only stayed one night, we didn’t experience most of the amenities. However, everything looked in pretty good shape, and people seemed to be enjoying their time here.
- Location, location. Staying here puts you minutes from the visitor center, which matters if you want to beat the midday crowds.
Reviews online are mixed on site size, and it isn’t the cheapest KOA you’ll ever stay at. We paid $85 a night in June 2025. But you’re paying for that view and that location, and for us it was worth it.
We don’t share the mixed reviews on site size. We were in site 58, a pull-through, and it had more than enough space for our 33-foot Jayco and long-bed Ford F-350. The sites are gravel, the hookups worked great, and with this view, what more could you want?
A Little History: Much More Than a Big Rock
How it formed
Devils Tower started as molten rock that pushed up into softer sedimentary layers tens of millions of years ago and cooled underground. As it cooled, it cracked into the long, many-sided columns you see today. Over time, the softer rock around it eroded away and left the hard core standing. Geologists still debate exactly what kind of intrusion it was. Look down as you walk the base and you’ll see broken columns piled in the boulder field, pieces that have fallen over thousands of years. Some of them are the size of cars or even school buses.
A sacred place
Long before it was a tourist stop, the tower was, and still is, sacred to many Northern Plains tribes. Different tribes have different names for it, including Bear Lodge and the Lakota name Mato Tipila. Several tribes tell a version of the same story: young girls chased by a giant bear climbed onto a rock and prayed, the rock rose into the sky to save them, and the bear’s claws scraped the deep grooves into its sides. In some versions, the girls became the stars of the Pleiades.
That sacred connection is why you’ll see prayer cloths and bundles tied to trees along the trail. They’re religious offerings, so please don’t touch, move or disturb them.
America’s first national monument
On September 24, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Devils Tower the first national monument in the United States, using the brand-new Antiquities Act. 2026 marks its 120th anniversary.
Where the name came from
The name “Devils Tower” dates to an 1875 expedition. It’s widely believed to stem from a mistranslation of a Native name meaning something closer to “bad god’s tower.” Many tribes find the name offensive, and there have been repeated efforts to officially rename it Bear Lodge.
The ladder and the parachutist
Two of our favorite stories about Devils Tower:
- The 1893 ladder. On July 4, 1893, local ranchers William Rogers and Willard Ripley climbed to the top of Devils Tower using a ladder of wooden stakes driven into a crack in the rock, while about a thousand spectators watched from a Fourth of July celebration below. Two years later, Rogers’s wife, Linnie, became the first woman to reach the summit. Part of that old stake ladder still clings to the southeast side, and you can spot it from the Tower Trail.
- Devils Tower George. In October 1941, a stunt parachutist named George Hopkins landed on the summit to win a $50 bet. The rope he planned to climb down with missed the top and went over the edge. He was stranded, living on air-dropped supplies, while the story made national headlines. A team of climbers finally rescued him after six days stuck on top.
Pop Culture: Close Encounters of the Third Kind
For a lot of people, us included, the first time we ever saw Devils Tower wasn’t in a geography book. It was in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
In the 1977 film, Richard Dreyfuss plays a man who becomes obsessed with a shape he can’t get out of his head after a UFO encounter. He sculpts it out of shaving cream, then out of mashed potatoes at the dinner table, and eventually builds a huge version in his living room. That shape turns out to be Devils Tower, where the movie’s grand finale plays out with the alien mothership landing behind it.
The movie was a huge box office hit, which helped turn a remote Wyoming landmark into a household image. The tower has been tied to UFOs and aliens ever since.
You’ll feel the UFO connection everywhere you turn: alien-themed souvenirs, little green men on T-shirts and, of course, the nightly screening at the KOA, where some scenes of the movie were filmed. There’s something wonderfully fun about watching that final scene while the real tower stands right there in the dark.
Our Afternoon in the Park
The monument is small and easy to navigate. One road runs about three miles from the entrance station up to the visitor center at the base of the tower, and almost everything a casual visitor wants is along that road.
The drive in
On the way up, you’ll pass a large prairie dog town in the grassy flats near the river. It’s worth a slow roll (or a stop at a pullout) to watch them pop up and chirp at each other. Watch the road, too, because people stop suddenly here. And expect company: there was a lot of traffic heading into the park when we drove in.
The visitor center
The visitor center is a rustic log building that dates back to the 1930s and the Civilian Conservation Corps. Inside are exhibits on the geology, the tribal history and the climbing history, plus a bookstore and gift shop. It’s small, so 20 to 30 minutes covers it. It’s also where you’ll find rangers, restrooms and water.
The Tower Trail
This is the main event. The Tower Trail is a 1.3-mile paved loop around the base, starting right from the visitor center parking lot. It winds through ponderosa pines and past the boulder field, with interpretive signs along the way. It has some gentle ups and downs but is easy for most people, and we took our time stopping for photos.
What surprised me was how different the tower looks from each side. From one angle it’s a perfect column. From another it looks leaning and lopsided, with huge chunks of broken columns piled at its feet. Bring binoculars if you have them.
Watching the climbers
One of the coolest parts was spotting climbers on the face. Devils Tower is one of the best crack-climbing areas in North America, with hundreds of routes. From the trail, climbers look like tiny specks stuck in the seams between the columns, and it’s fascinating to watch them inch up.
If you visit in June like we did, know that the park asks climbers to voluntarily skip climbing for the whole month out of respect for tribal ceremonies. Most climbers honor it, so you’ll see far fewer of them than in July or August. The park also asks hikers to stay on the trail and not scramble inside the loop during June.
Is one afternoon enough?
There’s definitely more to do here, and I’ll get to that next. But for casual interest, one afternoon was plenty. We saw the visitor center, walked the base, watched the climbers, took about a thousand pictures and were back at the campground in time to enjoy the view with a cold drink.
If You Have More Time
If Devils Tower is more than a quick stop for you, there’s plenty to fill another day:
- Red Beds Trail. A 2.8-mile loop that drops down toward the river through red sandstone and gives you wider, less crowded views of the tower. It’s also the trail to use if you parked down by the picnic area.
- Joyner Ridge and South Side trails. Shorter, quieter options with great angles on the tower, especially at sunrise and sunset.
- Climbing. Experienced climbers register with the park before and after a climb, and local guide services take beginners up, too. Just remember the June voluntary closure, plus spring route closures for nesting falcons.
- Ranger programs. Check the schedule at the visitor center for summer talks and walks.
- Night skies. Out here, far from city lights, the stars are spectacular. Seeing the tower silhouetted against the Milky Way is a bucket-list moment of its own.
Tips for RVers
We travel full time in a Jayco Eagle fifth wheel pulled by a Ford F-350. Here are some tips for enjoying the park when you’re traveling by RV.
1. Don’t take the RV to the visitor center. From Memorial Day weekend through September 15, vehicles longer than 19 feet aren’t allowed in the visitor center lot. There’s a limited RV parallel-parking area along the main road near the visitor center, and a long-vehicle lot down by the picnic area, but both fill up. The easiest move by far is what we did: get set up at your campground first, unhitch and drive in with the truck.
2. Go early or late. The park says peak hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in summer, and waits of an hour for a parking spot are common. Staying right at the entrance makes it easy to slip in before the crowds or after they thin out. The park is open 24 hours a day. We arrived around 2:30 p.m. on a June Saturday, and it was pretty crowded at first. We browsed the gift shop first, giving the trail time to empty out a bit. By 3 p.m., when we started the loop trail, it was lively but certainly not crowded.
3. Pick your campground by your rig.
| Campground | Hookups | Reservations | Max length | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Devils Tower / Black Hills KOA | Yes | Yes | Big rigs welcome | Right outside the gate, tower views, nightly movie |
| Belle Fourche River Campground (inside the park) | None | No, first-come, first-served | 35 feet | About $20 a night, open mid-May to mid-October, no dump station |
If you’re over 35 feet or want full hookups, the KOA or another private park nearby is your answer. The in-park campground can fill on summer nights, so arrive by late afternoon if you’re trying for a spot.
4. Know the fees. The entrance fee is $25 per private vehicle, good for seven days, and the America the Beautiful pass covers it. Payment at the entrance station is card only. Non-resident pass rules changed in 2026, so check the current NPS fee page if you have visitors from abroad traveling with you.
5. Fuel and supplies. Services right at the entrance are limited to a few shops and restaurants. Top off fuel and groceries in Sundance, Moorcroft or Hulett before you arrive.
6. Connectivity. Cell service around the monument is limited, so download your entrance pass and any maps ahead of time.
7. Plan for the weather. Summer afternoons can top 90 degrees, and thunderstorms roll in fast on the plains. Bring water on the trail and keep an eye on the sky. Mornings can surprise you, too. When we checked the weather first thing, it was 52 degrees, but wind gusts up to 25 mph made it feel like 39. Surprisingly chilly for June! By afternoon it was sunny and in the 70s, so pack layers.
8. Watch for wildlife on the road. Between prairie dogs, deer and the occasional cattle, take the entrance road slowly. The speed limit on Highway 24 near the monument was even lowered because of traffic and collisions.
Was It Worth It?
Absolutely. Bucket list item checked for Stefan. We all truly enjoyed the beauty of the tower and have hundreds of photos from every angle to prove it. One afternoon and a night are definitely enough to get the full experience.
Devils Tower is the kind of place that rewards even a short visit. If you’re road-tripping between the Black Hills and Yellowstone, it’s a near-perfect overnight stop: a manageable drive, a campground with a jaw-dropping view, and enough history, legend and movie magic to fill an afternoon. Climbers, hikers and stargazers could easily spend several days. But if you just want to stand at the foot of something you’ve seen in pictures your whole life and find out it’s even more impressive in person, one afternoon is enough.
Next up on our Wild West Loop: Sheridan, Wyoming.
Have you been to Devils Tower, or is it on your bucket list? Did you watch Close Encounters under the real thing? Tell us in the comments below!
Sources
- Devils Tower FAQ, National Park Service
- Climbing information and June voluntary closure, NPS
- Superintendent’s Compendium (parking rules), NPS
- Fees and passes, NPS
- Devils Tower site pass and visitation notes, Recreation.gov
- Devils Tower / Black Hills KOA Journey
- Devils Tower KOA profile, Cowboy State Daily
- The 1941 Hopkins parachute stunt, WyoHistory.org
- Tower Ladder, National Register of Historic Places summary
- Belle Fourche River Campground details, AAA
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