So, back in July, I posted about part of our trip to Arizona, Colorado and southern Utah. In my last post about our trip, I asked what was in Cortez, Colorado, but I never posted what it was! It is Mesa Verde! I had never heard of the place, but my brother insisted we visit it. It was one of my favorite things from the trip - and the kids agreed. It is filled with cliff dwellings that were absolutely COOL! The ancestral Pueblo people lived here from 600 to 1300. There are nearly 5,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. We visited a few of the biggest sites that housed many families. It was impressive how these people lived. It is believed that when conflicts started to arrive among other communities they moved their homes down into the cliffs below where their homes had been. They used feet and hand holds to scale the rock faces and carried not only their water up from the river bed far below, but their food they hunted and gathered down from the open, flat plains above them. Even with ladders and rock stairs built into the cliff faces (by the National Park system) it was difficult and a little nerve racking to get to these dwellings. I can't imagine carrying water, food or a deer down on my back. And as a mom, I can't imagine my scaling the rock face.
We toured Balcony House. Where we scaled this 32 foot ladder, crawled through an 18" wide and 12 foot long tunnel (see lower down for a pic) and then climbed up a 60 foot open cliff face with uneven stone steps and two 10 foot ladders to exit.
These are some of the pics of what we got to see after we got to the dwelling.
This was the way we exited the dwelling - the tunnel I mentioned earlier. and my brother coming out of it. You could not come from directly above the dwelling so you either went in this way or up ladders and through a small opening on the other end. This tunnel is not even wide enough for shoulders to fit through and only tall enough to crawl on all 4. It isn't very long that it is this short, but the tunnel is 18 feet long. It sure slows you down to get in and out. Toward the end of the time they lived in the cliff dwellings, water was in short supply and families were fighting over water to stay alive. This particular dwelling had a natural spring in the rocks and it is believed that they closed off the openings (as you can see they bricked in a much bigger opening) making it easy to prevent people from entering. One person could easily stand guard of this small opening and with a bow and arrow at the other end of this tunnel, prevent anyone from entering their home and stealing water, which would threaten their lives as well.
And this is a shot looking down after we finished climbing out. This is the rockface we scaled to exit and one of the two ladders. I can't imagine doing it with just my fingers and toes holding me to the cliff - there are a few of the footholds still preserved and they are TINY! Not a foothold - definitely a toe hold. I would say these people were rock climbers.
The second cliff dwelling we toured is the largest one, Cliff Palace. Some were just small single family, one room homes, but this one housed LOTS of families. This one was reached by descending uneven stone steps, a path and climbing three ladders with an elevation change of 100 feet.
This is a kiva - a large hole in the ground used for religious purposes as well as family gatherings.
The kids sitting and looking down into the kiva.
A look back at the dwelling before we left - notice the smaller openings along the top - that is their grainery and food storage areas. You can see a few of the kivas, but it is believed that each family had their own and that would mean this area housed about 30-40 families.
This is a picture of some smaller cliff dwellings from across the canyon. Gives you perspective of how far below the top they are and if the picture showed further down, you could see that the bottom is much further down ... not in the picture.
Amazingly cool place to go! Less than a day's drive from home and I didn't even know it existed. So many cool things to see!
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