Mesa Verde National Park

After a rainy drive from Hovenweep, the evening we arrived we visited the brand new visitor’s center and bought our tickets for the Ranger guided tours for the next morning to the cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloans at Mesa Verde National Park.  Mesa Verde Park is about 15 miles east of Cortez Colorado.  Dad & I both chose the Cliff House but I passed on the Balcony House when I saw a little box that represented the size of the tunnel 12 feet long you had to crawl through and the ladders up the FACE of the cliff with nothing but air on either side!!! A little too much bravery required for me on that one.  A view from one of the overlooks across the canyon into a dwelling

Dad of course had to drive the 23 miles of WINDING ROAD up to the overlooks of the cliff dwellings that night.  It turned out to be good to know our way around up there.  The interesting history of the place according to archeologists is the people only occupied these homes they worked so hard to build for about 75 to 100 years from 1200 – 1300 AD and then moved on.  Prior to that they had lived in similar  buildings but built on the tops of the mesas not in the overhangs of the cliffs.  They are not sure of the reasons they left – they have no written language only the oral traditions of the descendent Indian tribes in the area.  They think either crop failure from drought or over use of the land or attacks from other tribes.

After a rainy, cold night in the trailer we were up early for Dad’s trip to Balcony House.  After he was done we hiked out to the observation point where we could see back into where he had just climbed down.

 

 

 

 

If you look along the right side by the black mark you can see the ladder Dad had to climb up to get into this one and then in the center is where this tunnel is that you see Dad climbing out of in the picture below.  And then over on the left is the ladder up the big rock to the top where you can see the people standing!! I am glad I did not try this one!

 

Next we visited the museum and interpretive center and then hiked down the nice easy but STEEP path to visit Spruce Tree House.  The Rangers just wait down there and answer questions about it.   Funny thing about this one - - when we were down there with all the tourists who had traveled miles and miles to get there - - here came  hordes of 5^th graders with their teachers out visiting for a field trip climbing all over everything!  Not like any field trip to the tide pools at the beach I took when I was a 5^th grader!

At this site there is a KIVA which you can actually climb down a ladder into it.  A Kiva is a ceremonial dwelling that is built part way underground which symbolizes the Ancient’s belief of coming out of the inner earth into life in this world.  (Surpisingly similar to the Maya we saw last year in Central America) Here is Steve climbing back out into Earth Life.

We took the last tour of the day to Cliff Palace and it was awesome.  Lots of steep uneven rock steps going down and ladders climbing back out but your back was always protected so not too scary for me. The scariest part for me was seeing this on the walkway as we were going down to meet the Ranger - -

 Cliff House was the largest one we saw in the park.  The detail and work on the structures was just amazing and then to have to leave them and move on made me feel sad for them.

 

 

 

 

Can you imagine being the rancher back in the late 1800's just riding along looking for some stray cows and ride up a canyon and look up and see this up on the cliff??

Here I am bravely climbing back out!!

We enjoyed this visit back in time very much as well as the CLEANEST trailer park laundry and shower I have ever seen!  I even took a shower there to enjoy water actually falling on my head for a while instead of the spray-suds-rinse method of showering in the trailer.