Sat, Sep 15th - Mesa Verde National Park, CO

Today was a very adventuresome day for us. We headed out early and drove a couple of hours down to Mesa Verde National Park, driving thru Silverton and Durango on the way. This route is part of the San Juan Skyway and called the "Million Dollar" highway. Soon after leaving Ouray, we drove over the Red Mountain Pass at 11,075 ft. The speed limit on many curves was 10 or 15 miles per hour--curvy, yes! Guardrails-no! Did I look down--not too often. It was a bright sunny day and we arrived at the Park about 11:30. We soon had tickets ($3 a piece) for two Ranger-led tours: the Cliff Palace at 12:30 and Balcony House at 3:00.

Mesa Verde became a National Park in 1906 and is an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most of the cliff dwellings were built from the late 1190's to the late 1270's. They range in size from one-room houses to villages of more than 150 room, such as the Cliff Palace. Ancestral Pebloans lived in the cliff dwellings for less than 100 years. By about 1300 Mesa Verde was deserted. It is not exactly know why they left and moved to New Mexico and Arizona.

Aside: Jim and Lois, does this bring back memories?

Cliff Palace Tour - Mesa Verde's Largest Cliff Dwelling

This one-hr tour involved descending uneven stone steps and climbing five, 8- to 10-ft ladders on a 100-ft vertical climb. Cliff Palace had 150 rooms.





Balcony House Tour - Adventurous Cliff Dwelling Tour

This one-hour tour involved climbing a 32-ft ladder, crawling through a 12 ft-long tunnel, and climbing up a 60-ft open rock face with two 10-ft ladders to exit the site. Because this was the last tour today because the park was closing early due to construction, our tour guide gave us an extra long tour -1 hr 45 minutes - and told us a lot more history about the area than normal. He was very interesting and informative. We had folks on this tour from Belgium, Germany, Russia and Spain.

Here's the first ladder that we had to climb. It was wide enough for 2 people to climb up side by side. "Oh, don't look down!" This is what I kept telling myself.


Here I am standing by a partial balcony to the second floor of these rooms. What you see is not a window, but a doorway. These people were only 5 ft 1 in. to 5 ft 4 in. tall. Can you imagine what it must have been like for crawling babies and toddlers to live in these cliff houses? The infant death rate was about 50%.





Here's another obstacle we climbed up. See the holes in that stone. Well, we had to walk up them being sure to start with our right foot up to the narrow passageway up to our left.

This is called a "kiva". Based on modern Pueblo practice, Ancestrial Puebloans may have used kivas for healing rites or to pray for rain, luck in hunting or a good crop. They were gathering places and sometimes also places to weave. Pillasters (columns) around the inside supported a beam-and-mud roof. Entry was by a ladder through a hole in the center of the roof. They would decend through the same hole in the roof that the smoke escaped from. The small hole in the floor (bottom center) is a sipapu, or symbolic entrance to the underworld. The hole in the middle would have been a fire pit, the hole in the left side of the wall was a ventilator with the wall just in front of it being an air deflector. This would help the warm air circulate around the room.

Here's our ranger explaining about the kiva below. I kept worrying that he would step back and over the cliff!

Another butt shot, but this shows just how small a hole we had to crawl thru on our way out of this cliff dwelling. They said it was 18 in. wide!


This was the scariest part of the climb out of the Balcony House because the chains you hang onto are wobbly!

This was the last ladder that we had to climb to get to the top and as we ascended it, it started to rain--perfect timing. Boy, did we get some exercise today!

For the Grandkids and Nephew Mason:

1. “How were the Pueblo ancestors’ lives different from other Indians?"

"For one thing, they lived up on the Colorado Plateau, which has cooler and wetter weather. With more rain, they could grow corn, beans and squash without digging large irrigation systems. They had lots of wood to use for fuel and house-building and there was plenty of game to hunt, such as deer, elk, bighorn sheep and rabbits.”

2. “Why did they build some houses in cliffs?"

"Probably for protection from invades and for shelter from the wind and rain. Being dry, cliff houses were perfect places to store food. They nearly always faced south and thus were warmed by the sun in winter.”

3. “How did they climb in and out of their cliff houses?"

Very carefully! They used ladders made from logs and chipped niches called “hand-and-toe holds” in the cliff walls. They probably used ropes, too, woven from yucca fibers.

4. “Why were kivas underground?"

"Partly for religious reasons. The idea of Mother Earth, who nurtures life, is very important in Pueblo religion. Traditional Pueblo Indians believe that long ago their ancestors came up into this world from another world below. According to their beliefs, people emerged into the present world through a hole in the earth. The Hopis and Zunis believe this hole, or place of emergence, is in the Grand Canyon.” Note that the pictures have that hole shown in the kivas.

5. “What was a kiva like inside?"

"Some kivas were large, others small, depending on how many people were to use them. Most were round and had a firepit in the middle of the floor. Fresh air came in through a vent along the floor and smoke from the fire rose up through a hatch in the ceiling."

"People entered kivas by a ladder through the hatch. During a meeting or ceremony, they sat in a circle around the floor. Many kivas had sitting benches or shelves around the edges and wall niches to hold ritual objects. They often had looms, too, that were used for weaving fabrics.”

6. “What happened to the people who lived at Mesa Verde?"

"Archeologists think droughts in the 1200s may have caused severe food shortages, resulting in starvation and disease. There also may have been warfare. For whatever reason, by 1300 nearly everyone had decided to seek a better life elsewhere.” Many went south to New Mexico and Arizona."

Mesa Verde (Spanish for "green table") : www.nps.gov/meve
Silverton: http://www.silvertoncolorado.com/
Durango: www.durango/org