#17 Mesa Verde: I Never Knew You

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September 6-8: Why do we make the choices we make? Sometimes by logic, perhaps more often by “feel”. Sometimes our lives are fairly routine and there seem to be few choices to ponder beyond the groceries. On this trip we're making choices constantly, such is the butterfly life.
In 1960, when I was 12, our whole family piled in the blue Dodge sedan and off we went to California! (from Massachusetts, that is from the east coast to the west coast of the USA) I had little idea of what this would mean when I was first fighting for the place I wanted in the back seat, but over the next THREE weeks (I kid you not) our family travelled about 10,000 miles and names like Kansas and Yellowstone and Disneyland and Crater Lake materialized from their 2-dimensional TV realities to actual places we could walk through and touch. And there were so many more things twixt Heaven and Earth than had been dreamt of in my philosphy (apologies to Hamlet).
One thing we saw only from a distance was a cliff dwelling where Native Americans had once lived. My mother took a picture from afar, and the colored slide became part of our STOR of THE TRIP, even just as an aside. I don't know why we didn't go to the cliff, probably we didn't “have time”, or maybe my parents weren't that interested, or maybe my mother was afraid.
In any case, it's something which has hung in my curiosity closet for 50 years. So when I was listing off our planned stops and mentioned “cliff dwellings” (not having any idea where they were other than in the SW desert area, Bonnie G. murmered “Mesa Verde” (thanks, Bonnie), so when I saw those words on the map of SW Colorado, the Mesa Verde National Park got plaited into our evolving itinerary.
I would have been happy with one dwelling, that's all I knew about. But Mesa Verde has 600 dwellings (counting each separately, so the Cliff Palace which may have housed 150 people is still only one dwelling) and all up Mesa Verde has14,000 separate sites which show some human intervention.
Upon arrival it was clear to me that this was not the dwelling we had seen from afar—that site was far more barren—but through making this selection we had stumbled upon a World Heritage Site known internationally as a place of occupation by Native Americans for over 500 years, from 700AD to 1280 or so. Then suddenly they were no longer there. One of those mysteries.
Mesa Verde was definitely, for me, one of the highlights of our trip, so I'm warning you now, there are LOTS of pictures and I'm pretty sure you'll have to turn to page two this time to see them all.
At the campground we were surrounded by a large group of Germans and could hear French spoken as well. This was obviously a place of international interest.

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Photos

Campsite company
When we arrived at Mesa Verde, we'd done a long drive, so we decided to settle in at our beautiful campsite and relax till the next morning. We were happy to have some circumspect visitors.

Heading upward
Mesa Verde is at 7,000 ft, but on the several mile drive in you go up and down a few times. Here's the first stop we made, looking down at Navajo Valley.

Sleeping Ute in the distance
We grew up hearing the words Navajo, Comanche and Apache in the TV westerns, but now I'm learning Ute, Hopi, Zuni...my knowledge is so lacking!

A green mesa
The Mesa Verde area has many mesas.

Amazing landforms
So why did these people choose to live at the mesa top? Many theories: safety? more sun for crops?

Devastation by fire
Not long a go a terrible lightning-started fire raged through Mesa Verde. The gambrel oak bushes have started to come back, but the big trees will take much longer. Many new sites were found after the fire, though.

Far View Sites: 7,700 ft
Although some tours must be ranger-led, there are many sites which have booklets to guide people through by themselves. Our first stop was Far View.

Far View: A community of sites
Nearly 50 tiny villages have been found within a 1/2 square mile radius. The Far View site was one of the most populous and intensively farmed areas.

A Kiva
It is believed that the round, underground rooms were used for ceremonial purposes, based upon similar structures and uses amongst current day Native Americans.

Group dwellings
This "house" had 40 rooms on the ground floor, and an undetermined number on the second floor. Thoughts of all this cooperation make our 5 years at Arlington Street shrink by comparison!!

Flowers everywhere
Yellow and purple flowers throughout the site made it seem that there must have been lots of natural beauty on the mesa top.

Far View Tower, built 1200s
This site had a round tower, 3 Kivas and 16 small rooms. Kivas normally had slightly conical roofs and were entered by a ladder down a hole in the middle of the roof.

Mummy Lake
This is believed to have been a reservoir, part of a system of irrigation channels which handled rain water.

Megalithic House
Though most of the structures were made of clay bricks about the size of a loaf of bread, this house use large stones, hence its name. See the large stones standing at the back of the pic.

Spruce Tree House from the viewpoint near the Museum
Our first glimpse of Spruce Tree House. It's a long steep descent. People with heart conditions, knee problems and breathing problems are advised to not go. Thank goodness Phil and I are still ambulatory!!

Spruce Tree House
In the last hundred years or so, the mesa dwellers moved down from the measa tops and became cliff dwellers. They had superb masonry skills and made huge dwellings in cliff alcoves.

Multi-storied, multi-functional
Rooms with carbon on the ceilings and walls were used for living and cooking. Rooms without it were most likely pantries and storage areas.

Spruce Tree House, 3rd largest
95% of Spruce Tree House is the original architecture, the parks service policy is to stabilize but not transform. It is believed about 100 people lived here.

Looking back into the cave
Areas at both the back and the front of the cliff were used for both discarding and for burials. The careful treatment of the dead is evident by the accoutrements which accompany them.

Kiva
The upright columns are pilasters upon which the roof was hung. The fire pit is near the middle. Usually beside it is a small hole which symbolizes that the people came from beneath the earth long ago. A ventilation system brings air down through a sort of chimney, and the "deflector wall' near the fire pit conducts the fresh air around the interior.

Back at camp
More little visitors

Comments

[Norma]

Wonderful!
This is amazingly wonderful. It made me want to cry! I do not know why? A forgotten people? So much skill! Thank you for sharing it with us. Imagine did n't even know about it. Norma

[Michelle Cavanagh]

Montezuma Castle National Monument
On our 2001 trip we didn't actually get to Camp Verde but we did get to Montezuma Castle National Monument which is close by. The cliff dwellings at Montezuma were built by the Pre-Columbian Sinagua people around 700 AD with the last known occupation around 1425 AD. Several Hopi clans trace their roots to immigrants from the Montezuma Castle/Beaver Creek area. Possibly you are headed that way since it's so close. Thanks for these fabulous pictures and stories - the more you see places like this the more you realise that those who lived in the long gone past were not so far removed from us as all the talk of modernity would have us believe. M xx

[Philip The Younger]

Mesa Verde
Looks just like it did in 1975. Awesome, especially if one is into masonry. Thanks for the memory-refreshing tour. Your travelogue saves the rest of us petrol money. Love, PTY