Mesa Verde National Park - Cortez, CO

June 22 to 24 - Mesa Verde N.P - Probably the best examples of Cliff Dwellings of the Anasazi people. They inhabited this area from around 800-1000AD until about 1300AD. Initially they lived on the tops of the Mesas, dug shallow holes in the ground and built framework for huts they lived in. They also cultivated and grew crops, so this was the beginning of the end of nomads, since they had to stay where their gardens were.  Around 1100AD they started building the cliff dwellings under large cliff overhangs that were usually just under their gardens. They still had to climb to the top of the mesa to do their gardening and harvesting, but the cliff overhang and the dwellings gave them a much more stable temperatures and protection from the elements and unfriendly neighbors. Around 1300AD most of the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings were vacated, likely due to severe droughts causing their crops to fail, so it is thought that they moved on to more fertile areas. Descendants of the Anasazi are still all over the southwest, but they are now calling themselves Puebloans. I guess the Anasazi got a bad name for some reason...

Sylvia and I did not have drought problems with our food. The first night in Mesa Verde we had some real thick steaks. They were so thick we each could only eat half of the steak, so had them again the next night.

The foil packages held sliced Vidalia onions with lots of butter simmered over the coals for a long time, and a giant Yam that we had to share, again too big for one. We also had a great salad and some beverages.

Eat hearty. Tomorrow is a big day of hiking around the cliff dwellings.

Second Day - One short hike, and we decided to spend most of the day driving around to get the lay of the land and to get used to the high elevations again. Hiking is really difficult until you get accustomed to the altitude. Here is a view from the top of one of the Mesas.

The red arrow in the picture above points to a lake shown in the next image to give you an idea of scale.

There have been 3 rather large fires started by lightning from about 1990 to 2003 at Mesa Verde. The Nat Park Forest Service has decided that they will not fight the fires started naturally, and they only protect buildings or residences when a fire advances. It is felt that the areas need the fires to allow clearing of underbrush and to allow the renewal of the vegetation. Sylvia is concerned about what happens to the animals living in the affected areas, but I guess most of them can get out of the fire's way, and for those that don't, nothing goes to waste out here, so they will be food for survivors.  Here is a picture of some of the fire damage from the 2003 fire.

It doesn't appear that the larger bushes are returning too quickly although the underbrush flourishes.

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There goes my imagination again. This branch reminded me of a ferret or something like that.

Last Day - Time to get serious about visiting the Cliff Dwellings. The largest one in the US is in Mesa Verde, and is named the Cliff Palace. The Rangers won't allow you to wander around here, but they give guided tours during which they give lots of good insight and information as to how the people lived here.

We stopped under an overhanging cliff and got to sit in the shade while our ranger talked about the Cliff Palace history for 15 minutes or so. The previous tour can be seen on the right side of the picture below, getting valuable information from their Ranger tour guide.  Click on the image to make it larger if you wish.

The climb down was not too tough, and the view was great, following Sylvia.

There are several hundred rooms in this site, most were small 4x10 ft or 8x10 ft rooms, which were used mostly for sleeping quarters.

The area above the dwellings right under the cliff overhang was primarily used for food storage as it was not accessible by foraging animals. You can see in the second picture that there were 3-4 floors built in.

Each family had a Kiva (a round living room) where they would gather to eat and have family get togethers.

Here is a picture of a Kiva without the roof.

 

The roof was a structure made of wood beams that rested on the top level of the round perimeter, was  covered with layers of adobe and more beams to strngthen it, so it could be walked on. In the center of the kiva roof was a hole, used for ventilation and to let the smoke out. The hole also held a ladder from the roof down to the floor.The only access to the early kivas was through this hole in the roof.  The kiva would fill up with smoke rapidly without ventilation, so the intake for fresh air is at the red arrow in the upper center of the above picture, and the air travelled down through the wall and came out of the hole just to the right of the lower red arrow. Just below the lower red arrow is an air baffle stone, that diverts the air as it is pulled down the ventilation shaft by the heat from the fire. The diverter stopped the air from hitting the fire directly, and made the air circulate around the room, more gently clearing out the hotter smokier air, which then went up and out through the hole in the roof.

Below is a picture of another cliff dwelling so you can see a couple kivas with their roofs installed and the ladders sticking out.

Here goes the great adventurer, venturing down into the kiva....

Lily liver said 'I'm not going down into that hole. No Way!!'

Here are some images of the inside of the kiva. You can see how the roof structure was built. There are even built in shelves for peace pipes, other ceremonial paraphenalia, and maybe Christmas or Hanukkah or Thanksgiving decorations. ??

I believe that when the Anasazi used them, the ladder leaned a little more because the fire pit would be where the bottom of the ladder is in this image.

So there you have it. More than you ever wanted to know about cliff dwelling life.

I told you the view is great when following Sylvia. Here we are climbing back up from Cliff Palace. It is a little hard to see, but look at the silly grin on the fellow following her up all the steps.

Here is a picture of us at an overlook for one of the dwellings.

Tomorrow we leave for Moab, Canyonlands N.P and Arches Natl Pk.