Rising out of the rolling southern Wyoming landscape to 8,000 feet, Vedauwoo is a seemingly foreign land with a calming and mysterious presence. The oldest granitic rock formations in Wyoming have been exposed in this geologic “wrinkle” in the landscape. Vedauwoo (pronounced vee-da-voo) is a Native American word that means “earth-born spirit.” Although commonly known for the multitude of climbing that can be done here, Vedauwoo is also a place where sitting and being with the age of the earth makes for a powerful experience.

From Wikipedia: “The rock making up Vedauwoo's characteristic hoodoos and outcrops is the 1.4 billion year old Sherman Granite, which represents some of the oldest rock in Wyoming. It is exposed at the surface around Vedauwoo due to the uplift of the Laramie Mountains that began around 70 million years ago. Younger layers of rock and sediment have progressively eroded, and this continues today. The hard granite of Vedauwoo is made of large crystals of quartz, orthoclase, plagioclase, and some mica and is more erosion-resistant, resulting in unique, wind and water-sculpted forms. Just east of Vedauwoo, along I-80, spectacular sandstone cliffs are formed of the Permian-age Fountain Formation, which is about 300 million years old. Ancient sand dunes of a broad desert met with the salty waters of a shallow, epicontinental sea, producing beautiful examples of cross-stratification. Fossils of sea urchins, snails, and sea lillies can be found in some of these rocks.”