Cook Lake and Warren Peak Lookout Tower

Stopped by the Ranger Office in Sundance to pick up literature on hiking/things to do in the area.  We were steered to a number of places to see and we wanted to do something, so decided to go to the Warren Peak Lookout Tower in the Black Hills National Forest, about a 30 minute drive north of Sundance.  Beautiful drive through the forest.  On a paved road!  Imagine that.

Easily spot the tower

View from parking lot

Heading up to visit the ranger

Hard to see but Devils Tower in the distance 

Rut-roh - beginning to hail on us, let's get back down

Found the lookout tower and walked up to the top to visit the ranger who mans the station.  He is in the tower from 9 to 5 right now, and on the 23rd, will be in the tower from sunrise to sunset.  In his van located below in the parking lot is a golden retriever, his pet.  The dog is too scared to come up the steps which are an open grate, allowing water to pass through.  So she just barked at us for now.  He and the dog sleep in the van at night, he has a restroom and in the tower he has electricity/gas to make food, so life is good.

Huge Marmot

The marks on the trees - made me think of a bunch of people staring at us

 Pretty interesting.  There are another 5 towers in the area, he said you could see them in the distance if you knew where to look.  The weather was pretty dramatic, it started to rain while we were in the tower visiting, and at some point, hail hit the windows.  The ranger had only been in the tower for the last 2 weeks, it was snowed in until the first of June.  Fire season (increased risk of fires) typically start on the 23rd of June and lasts till late October.

Devils Tower

Rally of corvettes - was raining pretty hard

On our way out - the sky cleared, go figure

After the tower visit, we drove to Cook Lake which was farther north on the Forest Service Road.  Pretty little lake, we were going to hike around the lake but it started to rain again so we got in the car and headed out.  On our way back to Sundance we were not far from Devils Tower so we stopped for a quick visit, again had rain so we only went into the visitor's center.  We will come back to Devils Tower later in the week.