Mesa Verde
Some of the hottest tickets this summer are not for concerts or sporting events - they are for our National Parks, which are limiting visitors as they gradually reopen post-COVID. For Mesa Verde, a ticketed tour with a ranger is the only way to visit the cliff dwellings. On the day we visited, there were only 300 tour spots available, and we were fortunate to get tickets to see the Long House.
I've dreamed of seeing Mesa Verde ever since reading about the Anasazi* in grade school. Steve had visited 50 years ago on a family vacation. So both of us were excited to see it. *Note, it is now more appropriate to refer to the cliff dwellers as Ancestral Pueblo people.
To reach the Long House, we hiked down from the top of the mesa, using switchbacks and stone steps. We turned a corner and BAM! There was a huge alcove filled with multi-story buildings built by hand 800 years ago. WOW.
The Long House is one of the two largest cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. It was probably home to 150-175 Ancestral Puebloans, and may have been an important gathering place for many more, as there is a large dance plaza and 21 kivas (ceremonial rooms).
There's a rare seep spring at the back of the alcove, where water from rain and snow atop the mesa emerged, after passing through many layers of sandstone. Residents dug small "cups" in the stone floor and connected them with shallow grooves, to collect the water. The cups are just large enough to fit a ladle.
We tried to imagine everyday life in the cliff dwellings: carving sandstone blocks to build more rooms, grinding corn in the cool shade of the alcove on a hot summer day, gathering around a fire in the kiva to stay warm in winter. And what about climbing up to the top of the mesa to tend crops, or accessing those storage rooms at the very top of the alcove? Yikes!
After hiking back from Long House we drove to the other mesa, and viewed Cliff House and other cliff dwellings from across the valley. It was a fascinating, awe-inspiring day. The big question is, why did the Ancestral Puebloans suddenly leave Mesa Verde? There are theories, but I like that this still a mystery that stumps the experts.
