Today was a beautiful day to visit Mesa Verde National Park. While the park is only 10 miles east of Cortez, you drive for another 25 miles to get to the ruins. As you drive through the first part of the park, you can see the effects of three fires in the park. Before the fires, the area must have been beautiful with pinion pines and junipers.
The park is set up with very nice driving loops. The Wetherill Mesa loop had not opened for the season. Even if it had, it had a weight limit of 8,000 for vehicles so we couldn't have gone there anyway. Still there was plenty to see and the crowds weren't bad at all which was very nice.
We saw Pit Houses
You can take a Ranger lead tour of Cliff Palace for $3 per person if you want to climb five 8 to 10-foot ladders including a 100-foot vertical climb to exit. There is also a Ranger lead tour of Balcony House (you can't see it from the road) also $3 per person that entails a 32-foot ladder to enter the dwelling, a 12-foot x 18-inch wide tunnel you have to slither through, and a 60-foot climb along an open rock face and two 10-foot ladders to exit. Sounds like fun doesn't it? We passed although I told John if he wanted to do one of them, I would be happy to wait for him. He said he wasn't interested as he had seen what he had come to see.
How did these people build these things? Their tools were minimal yet the construction of the kivas and the cliff dwellings are unbelievable. Walls are straight and tall and have stood the test of time. Amazing. The Ancestral Puebloans lived up on the mesa's and it was just the last 75 to 100 years that they lived here, when they built and lived in the cliff dwellings. Makes you wonder why. Can you imagine raising children in these dwellings? These people must have been in fabulous shape because they all would have had to climb the walls of the canyon with finger and toe holes.
Here is a picture of Mancos Valley with beautiful snow-capped peaks in the background. What a view.
Later in the afternoon, we walked across the street to the Colorado Welcome Center and picked up some literature on what Colorado has to offer. We then walked around their two beautiful parks, Cortez City Park and Centennial Park, here in the center of town. One of the nicest city park areas we have ever seen. The Centennial Park even has a disc golf course. Hmmm, I wonder if we could play it like we play Wii Frisbee Golf. We may have to get a couple of Frisbees and find out.
