Mesa Verde

Unexpected Weather in Colorado

The Ride Up

A Man and his Navigator

First Glimpse

Cliff Palace

Kiva

Cliff Palace

The Trail out of Cliff Palace

Soda Canyon

Remains of a Pit House on the Mesa

Cliff Dwelling Viewed during 70 mph winds

   Sleep, (a relative term with the powerful winds all night), in the driveway of a friend of a friend, 7 miles outside the entrance of Mesa Verde. We wake and think about the day. A peek out the window and we watch the thick snow blizzarding past. Why did we leave Fairfield?

      Mesa Verde is a whole adventure in itself. It’s hard to think that all that has happened started this morning. The most magical day yet in all our time gone.

      We started with a breakfast at a local café- the Absolute Bakery, Mancos, Colorado. A combination of strange looking locals, and tourists thrown into a crowded bookstore.

      As we drove those 7 miles to the entrance of the park, there appears a monumental mountain with steep rock cliffs rising up, it appears, a mile or two into the air. That’s okay, seen that before, but that diagonal line across halfway up, what’s that? That we find is the road to Mesa Verde. We start at 6,200 feet. The first part of the climb is phenomenal. It climbs and climbs and you think it can’t go any higher. Snow covered mountains appear in the distance, canyons fall beneath us, hairpin turn after hairpin turn are turned and still the road goes up. Then it goes over a pass and we face south and we can see for a hundred miles it seems. Deep canyons running off forever and we turn and follow a ridge atop it all and miles later we are still twisting and turning as high as it seems possible. Then we plunge into a valley and then through a long, long tunnel and then the slow climb again, up and up and up. As high as we were before we follow more ridges and over pass after pass and with each pass another amazing valley falls down in front of us. It was like the road had gone insane, lost its mind and just taken off in all directions. Finally, after 15 miles of this, Sandy’s armrests have deep permanent fingernail holes in them, we come to a building. We are at the highest point (8040 feet) and the most amazing view of a canyon falls in front of us. Well, the ruins are still 13 miles ahead, but we look at artifacts at the visitors center and then start driving again. Here the road seems to have gathered its marbles somewhat and gently rolls down a thousand feet to our first destination, Cliff Palace. From the very edge of a 2 thousand foot rock cliff, we descend an ancient set of steps, switched backed many times until a flat path. This trail, we are told is the original the ancients used to get to their dwelling. Turning the corner the sight is breathtaking. It is like a fairy tale. The rock cave fills our vision, the top is curved and a hundred feet across. From there to the flat bottom of the cave are rock walls, built into many, many rooms. Some square, some round, some flat, some curved. Some walls have logs sticking out in a line to indicate an interior floor/ceiling. Some rooms stick out further and some are set back. But the walls fill the opening this way or that, giving an animated feel to the sight.

     We walk in, there are courtyards in places, in others, a Kiva is forward. It is a dream to see it. Both Sandy and I have waited decades to see this sight. Both of us, in grammar school, have seen pictures of this particular place and wanted to visit.

      As the day goes on we see the whole. Mesa Verde, is a huge area man populated from 600 AD. First living on the mesa above, in pit houses, which grew in complicity until about 1100 when they started to build these amazing rock homes into the side of the cliffs. From one vantage point on the opposite canyon rim, we see half a dozen dwellings built into the East wall. There are over 500 know sites of ruins in the area. They don’t know why they moved to the cliffs- protection? And from what? We see evidence of beautiful craftsmanship in rugs and baskets and pottery. The culture was advanced here and the masonry was complex. Then in 1275, everyone took off. Again they don’t know why, but the ancestors live nearby south in New Mexico and West in Arizona. There are stories in the oral tradition about these dwellings still today.

       It is a long day of walking and climbing and finally we need to leave. The long drive back is amazing again and finally we are back in civilization again. Here we learn it will snow tonight and be too cold for our rig. We head north and settle in for a long evening drive toward Moab, Utah. The drive is at first boring; the flat fields rolling north finally giving in to giant red rock jutting into the sky in fantastic geology, until the sun sets over western mountains. We sleep in Moab.