Red Rocks - Southwest trip, 2012
MESA VERDE National Park, Colorado
Mesa Verde 
Cliff Palace
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| The main motivation for the "Red Rocks" tour had been our desire finally to see Canyon de Chelly and Chaco Canyon. But in the end the entire trip had to scheduled around the opening of Mesa Verde . to be precise, the opening date of "Far View Lodge" and the tours one needs to join to be able to see the cliff houses. Far View Lodge is the only hotel inside the park and since the next town is about 25 miles away (a very slooow 25 miles as we discovered) that include about 15 miles on a slalompiste up the mountain to the mesa top at 8,300 feet and so we scheduled everything around the first available date when we could find lodging and a tour up in the park. And that was April 19th. To give you an idea how far away from everything one is up on the mountain: we were crusing up the road to the lodge, when somewhere around 7,500 feet the GPS all of a sudden commanded: "turn sharp left now". Well, let's put it this way - if we had followed that order I would not be writing this now because we would have hurtled down a very, very steep mountainside and might or might not have been found by now. Our poor GPS felt so forlonrn, no satellite in sight anywhere, it must have concluded to just put an end to all our misery and send us to our final destination. It is at least a half hour drive from the park entrance to the lodge and park headquarters, that is without campers crawling up the winding road at 15 mph, that is. One of the joys of retirement is travelling in the off season! Yes!! | ||||
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The pictures above give an impression of the vast solitude up on the mesa, if one ignores the "original inhabitants" who are calmly grazing in the middle picture. It was pretty obvious that they know - no guns in the park. The pictures also show that one can see for miles and miles and miles .... not least because of devastating wildfires 10 or 15 years ago. Given the altitude (above 8,000 feet) and dry harsh climate up here, it is expected that it will take about 100 years for the forests to recover! The accomodations in Far View Lodge are not as rustic as we have experienced in some other National Park lodges, but nevertheless, it was a good idea that we asked for one of the slighly upscale "Kiva" rooms. Among the pleasures was the superb view from our balcony. One might as well try for a room with a view of something other than a parking lot. Another pleasure was the lodge restaurant. We were grateful for something a bit above the "All American homecooking" in Bloomfield, Farmington, and Chinle. |
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On our first evening we drove through the park and discovered that except for the three "cliff houses" the park contains many archeological treasures that can be visited without booking a tour. Although we had booked our cliff palace tour for the next morning, we were able to get a glimpse of it (see picture on the left) and of one of the other cliff houses from across the canyon. The pictures here show how the houses are literally hanging in rock clefts. But more |
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| about that on the next page . Mesa Verde is an extremely rich site, containing over 5,000 archeological excavations, many of which can be visited. Like Canyon de Chelly and Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde was part of the so called Chaco Culture and like them it was occupied between about 800 and 1300 CE. Most of the pueblos were built on top of the mesa, the cliff houses were built during a much shorter period toward the end of the site's occupation. Just like the other sites, Mesa Verde was abandoned in the 13th century, presumably because of a prolonged drought which made it impossible to grow enough food to support the people living here. The assumption is that the ancestral pueblo people then emigrated to the Rio Grande valley, although it is not know for certain what became of them. However, the | ||||
Partially excavated site with protective cover |
Zuni and Hopi tribes maintain that they are the descendants of these ancestral puebloans. Again, this is not known for certain since the tribes do not permit DNA testing for fear that it might conflict with the sacred origin stories. The pictures here show how some of the archeological sites that not only have been excavated, but are protected against the ravages of the elements with roofs, as can be seen on the picture on the left. They also have explanatory posters which makes exploration of these sites without a guide very simple. |
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| The picture on the right above shows an excavated Kiva, of interest is the square framed hole in the background. It is believed that it could be used to generate "spirit visits" during religious ceremonies. Considering that it would have been pitch dark except for the flickering firelight and probably was smoky from burning sacred sage leaves. it is easily possible to imagine who spooky it could have been with or without the assistance of the Shaman. The pictures below can only give an impression of the many pueblos that had dotted the mesa most of which date to the period between 800 and 1150. Construction of the clliff houses did not begin until about 1180. It is suspected that the people began building in the cliffs out of security concerns because other tribes started to move onto the Mesa. However, it is also possible that the cliff houses may have primarily used for ceremonial or administrative purposes. | ||||
Grundmauern eines grossen Pueblos auf der Hochebene |
Rechts kann man einige der restaurierten Durchgänge sehen, Oben wieder eine Kiva |
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We had booked a four hour tour (no bopat involved) because we beleved that this would be the only way to be able to see the cliff palace. Well, that is partially true. We got on the bus and were chauffeured around to the sites that Nick and I had already visited on our own the day before. But with pretty good and sometimes amusing banter with three guides who were stillpracticing (second day of tours for the season). frequently we were hurried back on the bus with the cryptic remark "we must be at the cliff palace at 10:15am". And then we were there an ddiscovered that our little group of less than 20 people would be combined with about that many more folks who had simply bought a $3 ticket to see the cliff palace with a ranger. Because the only way you can see the cliff houses is with a ranger. That would have been ok, except that she essentially gave us the same speech about the mesa, etc. that we had already heard from our tour guide on the bus. For which we had paid $50 a person. Since, even though it was early in the day and only April, it was getting hot on the rocks, I could have done without hearing everything for a second time. As far as I was concerned, it was time to get down and actually SEE the palace. And then we did ------------------> |
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