Cliff dwellings
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2010
1
280
366
Trip End
Jul 13, 2012
Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Our next stop was Mesa Verde National Park, just west of Durango. After a quick stop at an information place to pick up a map, (closed on Saturdays but had maps of SW Colorado in a stand outside), we drove to the park. The park entrance is at the bottom of a 20mile steep, winding road which took us almost an hour to drive with a few photo stops. Arriving at the museum which acts as the winter visitor centre, we were too late for the 1pm tour to Spruce Tree House which is one of the only cliff dwellings open to the public. However, there was another one leaving at 3.30pm so after discussing it with a park ranger we decided to have lunch and then drive the Mesa Top Loop. This a 6 mile auto tour with view points of the cliff dwellings and also pithouses, (underground rooms). The cliff dwellings were awesome and we were looking forward to the tour down into one. We arrived back at the museum around 3pm, watched another movie on the Pueblos, (with many of the same shots - cheapskates!), and then picked up our guide at 3.30pm. We walked down to the ruins via a paved path but there was evidence of the route the Pueblos would have taken, known as a hand & toe trail, for obvious reasons. The guide was enthusiastic and showed us around the ruins which were similar to those at Aztec but on a cliff. As the sun set, there was only one corner of the ruins that still held the sun and you could imagine in winter how cold it would be here. We were allowed to go down into a kiva which had had a roof put on it and it was quite roomy & warm, surprisingly. We left the museum around 4.30pm and headed down the mountain, stopping a few times for photos and then we were out of the park. We drove to Cortez, west of the park, and found a Walmart and McDonalds to check email. After we finished with the internet, we parked up in Walmart next to another camper and cooked dinner. We then settled in, washed and watched another episode of Life, (although Cat is still struggling to make it to the end), before falling asleep in our thermals and pjs.
13th Nov.
Up around 7am, had breakfast, picked up a few supplies from Walmart and headed out towards the Four Corners Monument after stopping at the Colorado Welcome Centre to pick up a proper state map of here and Utah.
