An archaeologist explores a bunch of awesome cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park.
On Day 2 of my Four Corners adventure, I visited Mesa Verde, a park that I have wanted to visit for a long time and of course, in my usual fashion, I fit in as much as possible in a day.
Mesa Verde is located on the southwestern corner of Colorado. One of the most interesting things about the park is that it’s located completely high onto of a mesa, far above the surrounding land. It was really neat to drive around on the super curvy roads in the park.
The view from Park Point, the highest point in the park reaching in at 8572 ft above sea level. The clouds to the right are actually a forest fire that started north of Durango, Colorado.
I came to the park on the first day just to pick up tour tickets for the next day. I wasn’t ready to go to the hotel, so I stopped at a couple of viewpoints (above) and the Farview Community area, a mesa top village. Not all of Mesa Verde’s dwellings were located on cliffs.
I got a little excited by all the kivas, which had many different functions. They were sunken rooms used for cooking, sleeping, crafts and other ceremonial uses. However, sometimes people used in the buildings around the kivas for these activities. There really wasn’t a clear separation of space in Ancestral Puebloan homes like there is today in our homes. Kitchens could be sleeping areas, especially in winter.
Now to my crazy second day in Mesa Verde National Park. The park offers guided tours of three cliff dwellings and of course, I did them all in one day.
First stop was Long House, located on the Wetherill Mesa. Long House is the second largest cliff dwelling in the park. It could have housed up to 150 people. The house was built between 1200 and 1280 and then abandoned. Long House had over 150 rooms, a tower and central plaza.
Long House in all its glory. The place was huge.
Long House was a multi-story village. It was even a multi-ledge village. The upper levels were used for storage and reached by ladders from the top stories of the house.
This wall completely original and never needed some reconstruction. The room behind was used for storage and honestly, I can see why. It feels like a fridge through that doorway. In fact, the archaeologists that excavated the house used it as their beer cooler.
Looking down through the ruins. You can make out two circular kivas from here. There would have been one per extended family at least.
Even more kivas in the other direction.
To be honest, the place was simply amazing, and it was treat to see in person.
There were more ruins on the same plateau, pit houses and cliff dwellings. I explored some of those and then continued on. Near the park museum is Spruce Tree House. It looked really neat but couldn’t explore unfortunately due to some rockslides.
Spruce Tree House is more easily accessible than many cliff dwellings. Not much climbing required.
Another neat cliff dwelling is the Square Tower House.
There are a ton of cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, but you can only visit a handful. I went two more tours later in the afternoon. The next cliff dwelling I visited was Balcony House. Balcony House is a fitting name for this dwelling because it is perched on a high ledge only accessible by a 32 ft ladder. (I was only slightly terrified.) The inhabitants most likely climbed up using small toe holes.
The ruins of Balcony House, one of the smaller cliff dwellings in the park.
Balcony House still has an intact two-story wall with a small amount of red plaster still visible after 750 years.
The floorboards (possibly a balcony) are also original to the building.
Other parts of the cliff dwelling are pretty well intact as well, including this two-story building and kiva.
To get out of Balcony House, you had to crawl through this small ten ft long tunnel. It wasn’t as bad as it looks.
The last cliff dwelling I saw at Mesa Verde, and probably the most famous one, was Cliff Palace. It is the largest (by square footage) cliff dwelling in the United States. The building was continuously built between 1190 and 1260, but like the rest of Mesa Verde, it was abandoned by 1300. Cliff Palace is huge, containing 23 kivas (usually one per family) and 150 rooms, which could have fit around 100 people.
Cliff Palace was huge. Just saying.
Cliff Palace’s famous Square Tower. It was in ruins when the dwelling was excavated by archaeologist. It was rebuilt to its approximate height by the National Park Service.
A close up on Square Tower. The beams show where the different floor levels would have been. The tower reached all the way up to the rock ceiling.
13th century mural located inside of the Square Tower.
Cliff Palace, like most cliff dwellings, were made of various layers of rooms. The taller rooms were in the back, with shorter rooms in front.
Square Tower wasn’t the only tower. On the other side of the alcove, there is another tower that reached up to the rock ceiling as well.
Mesa Verde National Park is full of amazing ruins and cliff dwellings. This area was inhabited for over a thousand years, and it left its mark. I only brushed the surface for what can be found here. There is so much more to discover.
Check out my next update where I visit the mysterious Chaco Canyon.
