Rambling

Days 63 & 64-July 31 & August 1

It is hard to believe but we have actually arrived at our final National Park of our summer trip. Mesa Verde National Park is located at high enough elevation that it is cool enough for us to stay in the park. In other words, I can sleep without air conditioning. While we have learned many new and exciting things at all of the parks we have visited this summer, up until now they were more about scenery than anything else. Mesa Verde is all about the ancient people who survived in this harsh land, than the beauty that can be found here. After pouring over the maps that we picked up at the gate, Jess and I decided that we wanted to take at least one of the ranger led tours into a cliff dwelling. We headed for the visitor center to sign up for one of the tours offered for the next day. When we arrived we discovered that we could still go on the 7:00 twilight tour of Cliff Palace. Great, that way the next day could be spent touring the other areas of the park. We had a few hours until our tour so we drove down to Chapin Mesa where we enjoyed the exhibits at the museum, then took the trail to Spruce Tree House for our first look at a cliff dwelling. Historians don't know exactly why the Ancestral Puebloans decided to build these villages in niches along the canyon walls. It had to have been a very difficult life with the clans entire focus being centered on survival. Our tour of Cliff Palace was fascinating. We were able to climb down to the site and walk through the area where as many as 100 people lived. Although these Native Americans inhabited the area around Mesa Verde for over 750 years, they only lived in the cliff dwellings for the last 100 years before leaving the area to move south into New Mexico and Arizona.
On Sunday we toured the remains of Far View. This is an ancient farming community on the mesa. The Puebloan people lived here before moving down into the cliff dwellings. There have been nearly fifty villages identified in the area.
Our next undertaking was the 3 mile hike to see the Petroglyphs on the wall of the canyon beyond Spruce Tree house. It was an adventurous hike up and down the cliff side. After a ride through the Mesa Top Loop to see some pithouses and views of other dwellings along the canyon wall we called it a day and headed back to camp. On every trip in and out of camp we were greeted by several mule deer and their fawns.