Today was a relatively short trip from Blanding, Utah to Durango, Colorado with the tourist interest en route being Mesa Verde National Park. I had only visited this park once before, in 1986, so it was about time.
Some of the scenery in the park is quite impressive and there is one overlook, Park Point, where you can see almost 150 miles in any direction on a clear day. It is used a a fire lookout station and today visibility was about 75 miles.
However, the focus of the park is not scenic. It is the largest archeological preserve in the US and researches, preserves and provides access to some 4,300 Ancestral Puebloan dwellings and is particularly famous for its large, well preserved cliff dwellings. I took a ranger led tour of Cliff Palace which is thought to be the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The height of the population here was between 1190 and 1260 when Cliff Palace was home to about 125 people but the ceremonial and storage buildings found here indicate that it was a cultural and political center for as many as 6,000 people in 25 pueblos. The tour was fascinating and, like almost everything the Park Service does, was educational and inspiring. The area was abandoned around 1300 for reasons that are not really understood.
The map and road video can be found here.
The mesa is divided by a series of steep canyons and 600 cliff dwellings have been found just below the cliff tops.
Cliff Palace is the largest and one of the best preserved.
Only about 40% of the buildings here were domestic. In addition to food storage and meeting areas there are many round kivas, used for ceremonial purposes.
The fire lookout station at Park Point has a 360 degree view over thousands of square miles.
This is the view in one direction.
Somewhere I recognise from our trip. If you are going to Silvertown on the train, wrap up warm! We nearly froze and Denise had to buy a coat in Silvertown for the return trip!
Thanks for the tip, and for following along.
I will be driving through Silverton tomorrow, not taking the train. Since I went to Alaska I’ve got clothes for all weather in the car.
After seeing your pic of Mesa Verde and thinking of all the dwellings around the U.S. (including Cahokia Mounds near E’ville), I become more and more dismayed each year at Columbus Day. I just don’t understand why these beautiful people & cultures are NOT taught in American public school systems. I’m embarrassed to say, I learned a lot of U.S. history from WIS third graders coming into my art room talking about what they had just learned.
Bah…. enough of the politics…. Not the format here. But thanks for the nice pics of the cliff dwellings!
Enjoy Silverton…. it’s pretty amazing.
I’m not sure that Columbus should take the blame for all that happened afterwards but the European treatment of native peoples was, and sometimes still is, horrendous. A couple of years ago I went to a Smithsonian exhibition describing the hundreds of treaties that the US had made, and broken, with native Americans. Its a wonder that anyone trusts the US government to live up to its obligations.
One thing for sure is that Europeans did not cause the Ancestral Puebloans to leave Mesa Verde.
Last couple of times I’ve tried to visit this park, there have been fires and it was closed. Glad you got to see this amazing park again. I love Durango. I think there and Flagstaff are my two favourite SW towns. When are you back? Cathy
I can see why you’d love Durango but I’m surprised by Flagstaff. I’m planning to get back around Sep 10 so we can discuss it soon after.