9) Mesa Verde National Park, July 12, - July 16, 2009

Now we are on the last leg of our journey to Mesa Verde. Mesa Verde is identified as one of the cultural parks within the park system. There are over 6000 archeological sites inside the park, ranging from pit houses to pueblos to cliff dwellings, and they are continually finding more: they found over 200 previously undiscovered sites after one of the fires in the last decade. We set up camp at the Morefield Campground in the park and headed for the visitor center. [By the way, if you are an RV camper headed that way, disregard the commercial literature and the park’s own literature that says no reservations are taken. The full hookup sites were all reserved when we got there.] At the visitor center, we browsed the museum exhibits then signed up to do four ranger-guided tours: Cliff Palace, Long House, Balcony House, and an evening tour of Cliff Palace. All of these are cliff dwellings, off-limits to unescorted park visitors.

Cliff Palace from the Mesa Top Loop Drive

The next day we spent exploring Wetherill Mesa, one of the two mesas in the park. This mesa is named for the ranch owners who “discovered” and did the first excavations of the ruins. Our first adventure was to take the self-guided Step House tour. The trail head is near the kiosk where we were to meet the tram for our second adventure, the Long House Tour, and we had gotten there early enough to do Step House before we had to meet the tram. This tour is self-guided, but a ranger is stationed at the ruins to not only protect them, but also to serve as a great source of information and archeological theories. The ranger was very engaging, and we spent more time talking to her than we should have, so we had to “hoof it” back to the kiosk for the tram, but ended up making it in plenty of time. The Step House site is especially interesting, because it had examples of dwellings from multiple time periods, including pit houses and cliff dwellings.

Step House

At the kiosk, we got an orientation briefing from the ranger before boarding the tram that took us to the trail head for the tour of the Long House ruins. This is the park’s most in-depth tour and encompasses the second largest cliff dwelling in the park. This one includes climbing two 15-foot ladders within the site, our first serious ladder climbing, but not the last or most serious. We were also able to climb in and around some of the dwelling spaces and kivas (sacred spaces) while learning from the ranger. After the tour, we re-boarded the tram, which continues a loop drive before it arrives back at the kiosk. Along the loop, there are multiple tram stops where one can get off to explore and get back on another tram as it comes by. We decided to get off at the Badger House Community Trail and the Nordenskiold Trail. The first one, as the name implies, is a stroll through a mesa-top community of excavated pit houses. The second, named for Gustaf Nordenskiold who did the first “professional” excavations with intricate note taking, took us along the rim of a small canyon allowing views of two of cliff dwellings, which he had explored. As we made our way back to the tram loop, we could see the tram coming to the trail head, but we were about 1/10th of a mile away, and it didn’t see us. The next one wasn’t due for another half hour, so we decided to hike the approximately ½ mile back to the kiosk. Hot! On our drive back to the campground, we stopped at Park Point, where a short trail leads up to the highest point in the park and an active fire lookout station. What a great view of the valleys below.

Long House on Wetherill Mesa

That evening, we headed back out of the campground, but this time went to Chapin Mesa for the Cliff Palace Twilight Tour. This tour is unusual, because it is lead by a ranger who is in character. Our ranger portrayed the first park superintendant, Jesse Nussbaum. It was very interesting to “visit” the park in its early days and learn about the issues of that time period. Some are still issues today. Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in the park and has five ladders, including three 10-12 foot ladders that you must climb to leave the site. And to think we were going to have to do it again the next morning. As the sun went down, Cliff Palace takes on different looks as the shadows move and lengthen.

Ranger Portraying Jesse Nussbaum, First Superintendant of Mesa Verde NP

The next day was our “Chapin Mesa Day”. The first stop was the Chapin Mesa Museum, which has extensive exhibits of Native American culture and art. It turns out that Nordenskiold did a great job documenting his discoveries, but he also “made off” with thousands of artifacts that are still in a museum in Stockholm. He was briefly arrested, but it turned out that there was no law against the collection and transport of artifacts at that time. We didn’t finish seeing the museum, because we had an appointment for the Cliff Palace tour (having fun sure is a lot of hard work), but we would be back. Besides being the largest dwelling, Cliff Palace is the most popular, so the tour was full. This tour has a distinctly different character than the twilight tour and provides more information about the dwelling and its people.

Cliff Palace on Chapin Mesa

The Spruce Tree House was next, and it is the best-preserved cliff dwelling in the park. During this self-guided tour, we found two rangers at the site, one explaining the dwelling’s features and answering questions, while the other supervised the line of people waiting to enter the renovated kiva that is the only kiva in the park that visitors are allowed to enter. JEK was able to enter the kiva at the Alcove House back at Bandelier, but BYK was very interested to get this experience of a very important part of the ancients’ lives.

Leaving Kiva at Spruce Tree House

The Balcony House ranger-led tour is another very popular tour and entails climbing a 32-foot ladder, crawling through a 12-foot long tunnel, and climbing up a 60-foot open cliff face with stone steps and two 10-foot ladders to exit the site. The 32-foot ladder was bad enough, but the stone steps on the open cliff face just added insult to injury. This site is one of the ones that they are pretty sure was selected for protection because of the difficulties in accessing it. If they pulled up the 32-foot ladder, the only way in was through the VERY narrow tunnel, which must be done on hands and knees. This would obviously make the intruders very vulnerable. They aren’t exactly sure what the purpose of the balcony was, but think it was probably a means to access the second floor rooms.

Leaving Balcony House, First Through Tunnel

Then up the 32-Foot Ladder

We drove the Mesa Top Loop Road that takes you past sites covering almost 700 years of Mesa Verde history. On this road are 12 stops that take you to short pathways that make their way to pithouses, views of some of the cliff dwellings, and the Sun Temple. The exact purpose of Sun Temple is not known, but based on its features and lack of household artifacts found, it is believed to have had a ceremonial purpose.

Mesa Verde Canyon from Mesa Top Loop Drive

We went back and finished looking at the exhibits in the Chapin Mesa Museum and then drove to the Cedar Tree Tower and Kiva. An interesting feature of this site is the tunnel that connects the tower to the kiva. The passageway, it is believed, allowed dramatic entrances to the kiva during certain ceremonies.

Cedar Tree Kiva and Tower

The next day we went to the Anazasi Heritage Center outside of Dolores, CO about 15 miles from the park. The Center is another jewel of our trip and a must see for anybody visiting this area. It is managed by the Bureau of Land Management and located on the Trail of the Ancients Scenic Byway. The Center traces the history and culture of the ancient people and stores 3.5 millions artifacts from sites in southwest Colorado. The exhibits are well done, including the complete reconstruction of a pithouse. From the center we went to Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, hiking to Lowry House, and Handprint Ruins; to Hovenweep National Monument, hiking part of the Rim Trail Loop (heat); and back to Mesa Verde.

Boulder House at Hovenweep

That night dinner in the Metate Room at the park lodge was delicious and the deer foraging for its dinner outside the window completed the picture as the sun set over the mesa rim. The next morning was laundry duty (what fun) and on to our next adventure.