Mesa Verde

Yesterday's trip to Mesa Verde was just as awesome as we'd heard it would be, even though the cliff dwellings weren't yet open for tours this season. Since we couldn't tour them, we had time to do everything else the park offers: hiking, driving up and down the mesa hills, looking through the museum displays, listening to a podcast by a native Pueblo park ranger as we toured the Mesa Loop, and seeing the cliff dwellings from many different (albeit remote) angles. 

These two give you a sense of the vastness of the place: we're way up high on top of the flat mesa, and between the flat parts is the valley.

The ancient Pueblo people built their homes into the cliffs where there were natural overhangs, but on the level just below the top of the mesa, way up high on the cliff sides. They farmed on top of the mesa.

This one is called Cliff Palace, and it's the most extensive and complete of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. Built over 700 years ago, it housed about 100 people in 150 rooms. 

A closer view of one of the other dwelling sites

Here you can see how the overhanging rock provided shelter. Eventually, the ancient Pueblos moved away from this area to other places.

We were really moved by what we learned at Mesa Verde about how early "discoverers" of the cliff dwellings came up with their own version of what had happened to the people who lived here. Now the NPS is working with the modern Pueblos who are the descendents of the cliff dwellers to revise the stories being told and to improve the accuracy of the displays. 

Well worth the visit!