Mesa Verde National Park
If you are going to visit Mesa Verde you have to be planning to go there. Located in the far southwestern corner of the state, the park is bordered by reservations to the the south, and small towns to the north. It is a six hour drive from Denver, so it is hardly a day trip if you are in town there. We drove in on US-491 from the south, and crossed over on US-160 to Durango. Durango is a beautiful mountain town that is home to a small college, a charming downtown area, and apparently ski slopes all around. We stayed at the Strater Hotel, a historic hotel built in 1887 while Durango was still a small mining town. Now the hotel is the center of the downtown district. When you want to visit the park, just return on US-160, you can't miss it because it is literally the only thing in that direction.
The key site in the park is called the Spruce Tree House. The third largest cliff dwelling in the United States, it was built sometime around the 13th Century, and was home to roughly 100 people. Of all of the cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, this is by far the easiest to visit with a convenient walking trail down to the site. The detail of this dwelling cannot be understated. While few people actually called it home, they constructed storage rooms for food, cisterns for water, and built the whole city on the side of the mountain to protect against weather and invaders. While you are there climb down into circular storage chamber and imagine how many years it must have taken to carve this giant opening out of the stone cliff. As of this time though it appears the Spruce Tree House has been closed because of falling rocks, but hopefully it is reopened soon.
From there, drive around the park on the Mesa Top Loop Road. The six mile drive gives you several scenic overlooks of some of the other sites in the park, mainly the Cliff Palace. Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in United States, and is more challenging to get too, so the park restricts visiting to ranger guided tours. Built in the 12th Century, at it's peak, Cliff Palace was home to more than 100 people. The stone work they were able to accomplish with basic tools is amazing.
Check out the Square Tower House, an off-limits dwelling that is viewed from an overlook, and rightfully so. Try to put yourself in the shoes of the explorers of this area who rediscovered these villages in the 19th Century after they had been abandoned for years. It is impossible to imagine how these natives were able to build a multiple story building in this location back then, and the erosion that must occur on the few times it does rain there must have made this a dangerous place to call home. Trailheads along this drive that will allow for hikers to take a few hours to wander through the canyons. The Petroglyph Point Trail is awesome for viewing sections of the Spruce and Navajo Canyons, and for seeing some ancient carvings along the way. Keep driving until you come to Navajo Canyon. While not quite the Grand Canyon, this impressive canyon gives you an idea of the sheer cliff faces these ancient Anasazi tribes had to deal with more than a thousand years ago as they began to inhabit the region.
If you are into history, or hiking, you could spend an entire week here exploring, but one of the great things about Mesa Verde is your ability to spend a day there and feel like you made a complete trip out of it. I hope we get to return in the future, but if not I am glad we had a chance to see another amazing early American civilization.
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