Vedauwoo is an area of rocky outcrops located in southeastern Wyoming, United States, north of Interstate 80, between Laramie and Cheyenne. Its name, according to some, is a romanized version of the Arapaho word "bito'o'wu" meaning "earth-born".The area is within Medicine Bow - Routt National Forest and includes a day-use picnic area and an overnight campground. Vedauwoo is a popular climbing area.Interstate 80 passes just south of the main rock outcroppings and well-marked highway signs indicate the exit to use in order to reach Vedauwoo. An alternative is to drive in from the Happy Jack road that runs between Laramie and Cheyenne.OverviewThe rock making up Vedauwoo's characteristic hoodoos and outcrops is the 1.4 billion year old Sherman Granite. These rocks represent some of the oldest rock in Wyoming (but are still more than a billion years younger than the Tetons). 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 wind and water-sculpted forms. Just east of Vedauwoo, along I-80, 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 examples of cross-stratification. Fossils of sea urchins, snails, and sea lilies can be found in some of these rocks.
