Mesa Verde National Park

We set out early, excited about the day's adventure and the prospect of seeing the Puebloan cliff dwellers, and yet another style of living for these ancient people.  And boy, were we lucky.......it was the next to last day for the season!!

After the park entrance, you drive a winding 17 mile road that climbs to the top of the mesa, and, in order to go into the dwellings, must purchase a $3 ticket for a ranger led tour.  A small price to pay, indeed!   Cliff Palace is the largest pueblo, or village , and that, plus the fact that the second largest, the Balcony House , required crawling  through an 18 inch by 12 foot tunnel, we chose to book the tour of the first! No way I am climbing through a tunnel that narrow!! Adventurous as I am, I do have a bit of claustrophobia, and don't want to be in a tunnel that size with folks ahead of and behind me!

From the crest of the mesa, which is not so much a mesa, but a different geological form, whose name escapes me.  Cueva?  The ranger said it was OK....they would not take our shirts back and rename them!     

We were first led  down a long stairway, then stone walkway, created by the park service, through a very narrow passage, (but I could see sky above me!)  and then across a ridge and up a  ladder to reach our destination.  That wasn't so bad!

Our ranger  had an obvious passion for this place, the ancients and their lives, and described more than the construction,  how they must have lived, emphasizing that they were real people, just like us, and that they worked and played, and probably joked.  Your docent can often make or break an experience, and he was wonderful.  These people  had originally lived on the mesa, and then moved to the protection of the cliff sides, continuing to farm on the mesa, and lived there from 1100 to 1270 or so, and then left, migrating south.    They left behind pots, tools, baskets, and other evidence of their existence, which, along with dating of the wood in the structure, allows their tale to be told.    The fact that they built the entire thing with stone tools is astounding. We found it all fascinating.....their homes, storage areas for grains, again the Kivas for ceremonial purposes, and the development of the village.  And yet Clem could not help but continue to wonder why?  Why would these people choose to live here like this?

These areas are fascinating to us, but sacred to the culture today, and our ranger told us that just last week, they heard chanting coming from one of the Kivas that you can access without a guide, and later they discovered an offering that had been left to mother earth.

View from the top before our decent.

 When I caught a glimpse of this below, while waiting for the ranger, I was astounded!  You see it in photos, but to stand there, gazing down upon it, is awe inspiring. More than 150 rooms!

On the way in

And on the way out after the tour, two of the three ladders.

After plenty of time to explore, we were shown the way out.  NOW it becomes a bit more challenging, as we navigate narrow passages through rock, seeing what were the ancients hand  holds as we climbed up the stairs that the park service created, which of course they did not have, and then up not one but three 10 foot ladders, to finally arrive back on the surface!  There are  additional sites all around the mesa, so we had a picnic lunch and then  drove around, walking to look outs, and spotting cliff houses across the canyon, before heading back down, tired and hungry.  We topped off a nice day with a  Mexican dinner  and a margarita at a local favorite!