The Three L’s Travel The West

This was most likely one of our best days so far.  We were up early enough to take in the continental breakfast here at the hotel.  The manager had all sorts of tips for us as we started out our day.  We had planned to take in Monument Valley and Mesa Verde.  However, we nixed the Monument Valley (Louie and Lynnae have already been, and this will be incentive for me to come back to this part of the US) and went straight to Mesa Verde.

It’s just a short drive from Cortez.  We arrived at the park and learned that we still had to drive in 20 plus miles to get to anything.  We gained over 2000 feet in elevation along a narrow, winding road taking to the top of the mesa. 

Mesa Verde, (Spanish for green table) offers an amazing look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300. Today, the park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings.  The park itself covers 52,000 acres.  These sites are some of the best preserved in the United States. 

Our first stop was at the Far View Visitor’s Center.  There we picked up our tickets for our one ranger-led tour of the day, Cliff Palace.  Then we drove to the Spruce Tree House cliff dwelling, which we were able to view without rangers.  It took us approximately an hour to descend the 100 feet and then ascend again.

After our return to the top of the mesa, we found a light lunch at the Spruce Tree Terrace Restaurant and gift shop.  Our tour started at 1PM, so we wanted to be fueled up and ready to go.  Armed with fresh water bottles, we drove to the Spruce Tree Overlook to met our ranger guide.  His name is Corey and here he is:

I was concerned that one strong wind would blow him right off the path!  Then I started think that if I had to do this tour three or four times a day, I might be that thin as well. Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in the park. The tour is only one hour in length with a walking distance of a 1/4 mile involving five 8-10 foot ladders and a 100 foot vertical climb. The 1/4 mile is about 130 stair steps to the dwelling (all down hill). Then one of the ladders that was about 8 feet tall had to be used for us to get into the dwelling site. It was a very interesting tour, and we learned that the archeologists still don’t know alot about these Pueblos.

Our climb back to the top was strenuous, to say the least. The first part was about 30 stairs carved into the wall, and the pass through space was about 18 to 20 inches in some spots. After that, there were three 10 foot ladders to climb.

This gave us respect for the Pueblos who lived here.  It’s estimated around 150 people lived in Cliff Palace, and it must have been close quarters.  We learned they did their farming on top of the mesa, and also they “domesticated” turkeys for use as bug control as well as fertilizer. 

This is probably the most recognized cliff dwelling in America.  This is the one always shown in photos when referring to them, or just Colorado in general. 

We congratulated ourselves on a great tour and fell into the car.  More water all the way around and AC on max.  Later I would find I was sunburned on my arms and neck.  Someday I will listen to the warnings about the sun! 

We ordered in Pizza Hut for dinner.  My excuse was I didn’t want to venture out in the electric storm moving over us at the time.  I really just didn’t want to put shoes on again.  HaHaHa!  We finished off our evening with a swim in the pool and another soak in the hot tub for me.  We are all very tired and looking toward tomorrow and our drive to Albuquerque. 

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 11:39 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.