We got up early to arrive at the park at 8 am when it opened. We made our way to the Far View Visitor's Center, which was a good 17 miles inside the park. They were doing construction so the narrow road went down to one lane twice. It was the perfect drive on a long windy road for a little sports car, though there were really steep drop-offs during a good bit of it. (Thankfully dad was driving!!) The views were gorgeous as we climbed, and then we arrived to the visitor's center. We bought tickets for two cliff dwelling tours, then made our way to the first.
The description for Balcony House 'the most adventurous cliff dwelling tour. This one-hour tour involves climbing 32 foot ladder to enter the dwelling. At the exit you crawl through a 12-foot long by 18-inch wide tunnel, followed by 60 foot climb up the open cliff face using two 10 foot ladders and a series of stone steps." Now, you might think that this could dissuade someone who's horribly afraid of heights. Maybe it was the wine last night, or perhaps it was the determination of being at Mesa Verde and not observing from the sidelines.. I'm not sure. All I can tell you is that I'm glad I didn't think too much when I bought the tickets! The 32 foot ladder was going up, for which I was grateful! I got quite spooked at the top, but managed to cling to it and made my way up without humiliating myself too much. Of course, the panicked breathing at the top kind of gave it away, and the ranger and I had a good laugh.
Speaking of the ranger, Gary was a riot. Very dry sense of humor and clearly loves his job. As he said, he gets paid to play outside! Good gig. We wandered through the ruins and learned about the people who lived there. The Anasazi, or Ancestral Puebloan people- the name was changed from Anasazi, which is Navajo for several things including 'enemy.' The 21 descending tribes from these people took offense to that, so they are now referred to as Ancestral Puebloan people. They moved into the area over 1400 years ago, first building on the top of the mesa where the land was lush and fertile for farming, then moving under the cliffs in the 1100-1300s. It's not known exactly why they moved, but not all did, and it's believed it's either because of over-population, or protection. Most of the cliff dwellings, and I believe we saw over 15 of them, were built during around the same time period. I don't remember the details of each of the three cliff dwellings that we toured, but each had between 100 and 150 rooms, and were believed to have housed around 120 to 150 people. Each had several kivas as well, which are believed to have been used as gathering places for social or religious purposes.
The climb out was even more fun than the climb into the dwelling. We had to go up another ladder, but more fun than that (I say fun with a twinge of sarcasm) was the stone steps. These were footholds carved into the rock. Thankfully they did have a thick chain to cling to, er, grab onto, with metal rods drilled into the rock. Of course, grabbing the chain was ok, until someone immediately below you did the same causing it to buckle a bit. [deep breath]. I lived to tell about it, but it was a bit frightening.
The next dwelling we toured was Cliff Palace, which is the largest of the cliff dwellings. In this tour we had to climb five 8- to-10 foot ladders (a piece of cake after Balcony house!) This ruin was simply amazing, and a good bit larger than the last. We also had the opportunity to walk through it, though with Balcony House we did much of the walking behind instead of in front of it. The climb up the rocks worn smooth by thousands of feet was narrow and a bit slippery in parts, but not too bad. Having walked through both of these ruins, it's hard to imagine life during that time. They did find thousand-foot long ropes which they likely used to climb down into the structures, and to climb down to the floor of the canyon to collect food, water, etc. There were burn marks on the ceiling which distinguished living areas from storage areas. Rooms were quite small, and Cliff Palace also had several kivas.
Next we drove the Mesa Top Loop Road where there were several pit houses (surface dwellings) and cliff dwelling overlooks. We got to see some of the older structures, and the early attempts at kivas. As they developed, they used stone columns instead of wood beams to hold the ceiling up, and interestingly had a large hole that served to draw clean air in, along with a deflecting stone at the opening of the hole that dispersed the air in the room. The center of the kiva was a fire, and usually there was a hole in the ceiling so people could enter it from the top. There was a Sun Temple which was a large, many-roomed structure and quite beautiful, with a lovely view of the canyon.
We rushed back, or tried to, since we got stuck for quite a bit at the one lane parts, to let Sonnie out for a walk, grabbed a bite and planned to head back. I made a sandwich, went to the fridge to put everything away, turned around and NO MORE SANDWICH. Seriously? Sad, but true, and I should know better but apparently I don't. He was licking his lips happily, thankful for the snack! Of course, he left the lettuce but ate everything else, and every last bit!!
We headed back and went to the Museum, and then walked down to see the Spruce Tree House. It's the best-preserved cliff dwelling and was really amazing to see. They had a reconstructed kiva that you can tour, and though it was smaller than the other two, it still had 110 rooms and an estimated 110 inhabitants. At the top of the hill, we met a gal that I met and talked with while doing the Cliff House tour! We chatted a bit, and learned they were from the Netherlands and headed to Needles in Canyonlands Park.
We went to one more area, called the Far View Sites Complex, which was made of several developments. They were all fairly close to each other (one was about a 15 minute walk, and the rest were all within 5 minutes of Far View.) There was a tower, which we hadn't seen before, a large, round high structure, and also a reservoir, where they stored water for crops. They were a great example of pit houses, and you could tell that some were older than others. The signs showed that when one was deserted, they used some of the rocks from it to build another.
We headed out, filled up our gas tank and headed back to the RV park. Sonnie was eager to see us (of course!) As we were making dinner, we noticed we have a neighbor--- sure enough, it's the couple from the Netherlands! Too funny, and what a small world.
Long day today and we're tired! Got to take a nice long hot shower (ahhh...) Tomorrow we head down to Canyon de Chelly in Arizona. I've wanted to go for several years now, so I'm really excited about it. So is Sonnie (of course, he's excited about absolultely everything!!)
S
No comments:
Post a Comment