Mesa Verde National Park

Today we go to see what Mesa Verde National Park is all about.  Turns out to be one of the biggest tourist attractions around and we get there in the morning before 10am to find all the tours are booked out until 4pm that day.  Thankful that we are early, we book a 4pm tour followed by a 5.30pm tour and if want anymore we will come back tomorrow.  It is about 10 miles from camp so we decide to go back into town to do the grocery shopping, set up for tonight etc. as we will be late home.

The National Park was set up in 1906 to preserve the Ancestral Pueblo people's dwellings from around AD550.  Our first stop is an overlook with views for miles and miles.

We are quite high up and the air is a little thin up here.......

Above are some of the first cliff dwellings we sight while driving around - the pic of the left gives you an idea of just how far down the cliff they are and how high up the canyon!  Even with the wide angle lens, I could not get the top and the bottom of the canyon in the shot.....

We join our first tour at 4pm with Ranger Katie who was a very good guide and kept it interesting.  After a few warnings about small spaces and ladders etc, we walk down some steel steps onto a canyon ledge where we met our first ladder to climb up into the dwellings. 

Up we all go, two at a time like Noah's Ark!  I'm last following Daryl who has found a Scottish couple to strike up a conversation with and swap tour ideas.




Our first stop in the dwellings is an outside cabin for want of a better word.

Ranger Katie on our tour.

Next we climb up a short ladder and squeeze through the hole below on our hands and knees to get into the main body of the Balcony House dwelling.  Glad I am small!

The hole we all squeezed through.

The main Balcony House dwelling - its a long drop down!  The remains are quite interesting and life would have been very different - the Pueblo people were dry farmers and grew their crops on the top of the Mesa but lived down on the cliff faces.

Through into another room and then we all face a walk up steps carved into the stone cliffs with a rail but also a share drop down the cliff front, followed by another tall ladder to the exit.  Not for the faint hearted!

In between tours we rush around to another loop of the park as time is running out with only half an hour to spare before the next tour at 5.30pm.  We spot this fellow as we go around.

Cliff Palace

Our next tour is the Cliff Palace dwelling - the above pictures taken from the overlook which is as close as you can get if you do not take a guided tour. 

We head off through locked gates and down narrow gaps the rocks to a ledge where Ranger Paula takes this tour.

Unfortunately this Ranger is not as good as the previous and we are happy to end the tour around 7pm and leave.  We both have seen enough and do not feel the need to come back tomorrow.

There are obvious large cracks in the overhanging ceiling in this dwelling and the Ranger says it is likely to crash down on top of the dwelling and slide into the canyon - this appears a likely scenario given the cracks and freezing tempetures in winter in this area.  Sad to think it will be lost to the world in the near future.

A great place to visit and tours are well worth the $4 each!    It is getting late and we head back to camp to cook dinner and make plans for tomorrow - we have been having great difficulty getting camp sites due to the 4th July and Summer Break - apparently these are the two busiest weeks for camping in America!