When we first moved to Colorado, one of the places I immediately learned about (and immediately wanted to visit!) was Mesa Verde National Park.
This was further corroborated when E’s parents and then my sister visited Mesa Verde. I love archaeology and ancient sites (such as Angkor Wat, the Great Wall or Macchu Picchu) and I knew I would love to see these ancient cities and buildings built into the side of cliffs. Mesa Verde is a national park dedicated to the ancient cliff dwelling of the Ancestral Pueblo (when I learned about them in school they were called the Anasazi). The Ancestral Pueblo lived in Mesa Verde until around the 1300s, when they inexplicably abandoned their cliff dwellings and the entire area over the space of about 100 years. No one knows why they left, but it is thought they all migrated south to New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and even Mexico. (Read more of the history here).
We were able to camp for one night in Mesa Verde on the way back from our Grand Canyon trip, as the park is in Southwestern Colorado…sort of on our way home! We made it work, at least. The trip is about 8 hours from Denver, and the park has camping and some rooms at a lodge in the middle of the park.
We arrived late in the afternoon, and left the next day around noon. I would have loved to spend more time there, but, in our usual fashion, we were able to squeeze in quite a bit in less than 24 hours.
Here are a few of my favorite parts of Mesa Verde!
1. Driving into the park and seeing the vistas.
2. The helpful visitor’s center right before entering the park.
3. The short hike down to Spruce Tree House. Spruce Tree House is easily one of the most visited cliff dwellings in the park, as it is just a short walk down from the museum (which we didn’t have time to visit).
^^Spruce Tree House from the trail above.
4. Driving Mesa Top Loop Road. Along this road, there are several stops to view cliff dwellings from above or across the canyon, as well as buildings that hold excavations of other types of dwellings. Since we arrived in Mesa Verde fairly late in the day, we drove this road just before sunset (when the road closes). I loved visiting during this time, because the light was gorgeous and there was only two or three other people around!
^^Cliff Palace from across the canyon at Sun Point Overlook.
^^Square Tower House Overlook. Even the archaeologists have to rappel down to work on this dwelling…cool, right?
5. A tour of Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in North America. This tour was extra money as you can only take a guided tour, but it was worth it! We went on the first tour in the morning, as it gets pretty toasty down there in the day.
6. Going down into a kiva. This is an underground dwelling that is considered to be a living space, complete with a hearth. It is a completely covered, circular hole in the ground, which can only be accessed by a ladder in the middle of the ceiling!
7. Finding the cliff paths used by the ancient peoples who lived in the dwellings. They had their farms on top of the mesas and had to climb down the cliffs to their houses.
^^we got a ladder…the actual cliff dwellers had to climb up the rock!
8. The mystery of Mesa Verde. I was fascinated by the fact that the cliff dwellings were abandoned for no reason. While there are a lot of theories, from drought to aliens to war, no one really knows why they left…and we might never know.
9. Our campsite.
10. Ice cream and coffee at the Far View Terrace.
