Mesa Verde National Park

From the Four Corners region we moved into Colorado to visit Mesa Verde National park. It was created to protect one of the largest concentrations of cliff dwellings in the world. Around 1400 years ago, Ancestral Puebloans moved into the Mesa Verde area. Initially they were nomadic hunter-gatherers but must have found something they liked and decided to remain. As they became more settled they began to evolve into a farming community. Mesa Verde National Park protects not only the final structures these cultures built, the cliff dwellings, but also the earlier models, the pit houses, on the mesa tops. It is very hard to comprehend the magnitude of the dwellings within the park, both in size and number.

Early Pit House Foundation

There were three cliff dwellings that were accessible to the public. Two of which required you to buy tickets for a Park Service conducted tour. The tours were well worth it! The first dwelling we visited was Cliff Palace. Pictures don’t do any of the dwellings justice. They always seem to look like scale models.

Cliff Palace

The second tour we went on visited Balcony House. While not as large as some of the other dwellings this was the “adventurous cliff dwelling tour.” You must first climb a 32 foot ladder to access the site. Then crawl 12 feet through a 1 ½ foot tunnel to access the original entrance. To exit you had to climb a couple more ladders and numerous stairs to reach the mesa top. We were on a very small tour with less than ten people. As a result we were able to see a few more rooms then are normally shown. It was pretty fun.

dave Climbing into Balcony House

Balcony House

Original Timbers

Tunnel Leading Out

The last dwelling, Spruce Tree house, we were able to visit without a tour guide. This house contained 114 rooms and 8 kivas (ceremonial rooms). It is thought about 100 people lived here.

Spruce Tree House

Around 1200 AD the dwellings were abandoned. It is thought that overpopulation and resource degradation coupled with an extended drought took too much of a toll. Could overpopulation and resource degradation ever threaten us again? Sounds a little too familiar.