Mesa Verde National Park, Co

Revised.

25 & 27 May 2010-We spent 2 days in Mesa Verde, Tuesday and today (Thurs), and it has been well worth the trip. This mountain you see here you may recognize as the one right outside my front window. The entrance to the Park is less than a 1/2 mile from our RV spot.



From the entrance to the Visitor's Center, however, is a solid 15 miles...takes about 30 minutes because the roads are so windy. Those are wild horses right outside the Center...the only wildlife we saw the whole time.

There are hundereds of sites in the park that were built anywhere from AD 550 to 1300. Some you can go to at your leisure, on a self-guided tour, while others you have to take a guided tour with a member of the National Park Service. These sites are very much like the ones we saw in Bandelier National Park, but a bit more extensive and these were here before the ones in Santa Fe.

Tuesday we went to the Far View and Spruce Tree House sites, they are self-guided and pretty easily accessible. The people who built these are referred to as either the Anasazi people, or the Ancestral Puebloans. They were mostly farmers of corn and squash, but also hunted for meat.

This picture below shows what the ruins would have looked like before decaying, and I put the one with my car in it just to show you how big they are, even half ruined.

The Spruce Tree House buildings are significantly more impressive than the Far View site. What is interesting is that these people lived in these mountains from 550 to 1300, but they lived on top of the Mesa (mountain) the whole time until about 1200, when for defensive purposes they moved their dwellings down below, into the sides of the mountains. I stitched together 4 photos in this skinny picture below so you could get a better view...click on it to see it better.

And this is a single picture if the other one doesn't help. haha Spruce Tree House is the 3rd largest site here, and 90% of what you see is the original work of the Puebloans...isn't that amazing!? The National Park Service only shores up stuff that would otherwise be dangerous.



This is called a Kiva, and as I mentioned before at the Bandelier site, these were used in religious ceremonies. What we learned here that we didn't learn before is the little hole in the ground, to left of the big hole where they had a fire, was important to these people. They believed that humans were called forth from this little hole, that it was basically the origin of life. Although they are mostly uncovered today, hundreds of years ago they were covered over and also used for warmth during the winter. That is me going down inside one...that is how they entered all their dwellings, not by doors, but by a hole in the roof.

This picture shows what all this would have looked like 600-700 years ago.

These are pictures of the valley as you leave the park. The one on the right is from Mancos Overlook, which is the name of the town Cathy and I are in.

I said that the Ancestral Puebloans started here in this park, after they settled down from their wandering lifestyle, but sometime before the year 1300 there was a 23 year drought that forced them south, and as this map shows some of them ended up around Santa Fe, where we saw the last of these buildings. Cathy and I had no idea when we were planning this trip that we would come to find the 2 spots related.

Today we went back to the park to take the guided tours to what is called Cliff Palace and Balcony House.

We went to Cliff Palace first...this is the biggest of the sites, really amazing to see. There are about 150 rooms in this dwelling, and around 100 people lived here.

I took this video while we waited for the guide.

Notice how small the people look walking around. Some of these dwellings reached 4 stories high in the side of the mountain.

Next we went to Balcony House, which was not as impressive as the other places, but it was fun getting in and out of there. We had a series of ladders, starting with a 32 foot ladder to get to the dwelling. I messed up the video of Cathy climbing again, so turn your head or your laptop to view. haha

We also had two 10 foot ladders and a 60 foot climb along an open rock face to get out of the there. It would have been a fall of 900 feet had something gone wrong!

But the funniest was this 12 foot long, 18 inch wide tunnel we had to crawl through! (Good thing I lost that weight when i was in Texas!!! haha

On our way out of the park we stopped at a couple places where you could stand at the overlook and get some great views.

This shows how the people got back and forth to the top of the mountain where their crops were. needless to say they didn't have steps and ladders...let's try hand and toe trails...crawling along the mountain.

There are a lot of these dwellings that are not accessible to us...you can see 4 or 5 dwellings from this overlook alone.

This says there are 4000 sets of ruins in the park, but only 600 are cliff dwellings. Click on the skinny picture...it is another one we stitched together.

Most of the dwellings you have seen are between the 2 sets of greenery at the top of the mountain and about 1/2 an inch down in the picture. It is amazing that they were able to get back and forth.

And now for just a few fun facts:

-These people married when they were between 12 and 14 years old.

-When married, the men joined the women's clan, so all "property", etc., was with the women.

-50% of the women died in childbirth.

-The average woman lived till between her late teens and early-to-mid 20s.

-Most men lived from their mid 20s to early 30s.

Looks like a pretty hard life, huh?