Livin' on the Edge

Monday, July 25:  We awoke at 8:15 am hoping to enter Mesa Verde NP around 9am.  Wishful thinking.  Instead we spent an hour and a half figuring out how to unlock the bathroom door (did not know it could even lock) and then unplugging the "toilet" or as RVers would refer to it - the blackwater tank.  Fun stuff.  :(

On our way about 9:45 am, we entered the park around 10.  Visitor Center is 20 miles into the park up very steep, twisting, switchback roads, so it took us nearly an hour to reach the visitor center where we bought our tour tickets for the guided tour of Balcony House.  At Mesa Verde, there are some self guided cliff dwellings, some 1 hour guided tour dwelling and half day or longer tours.  No shuttle buses so you have to drive your own transportation from stop to stop.  We opted for the most strenuous 1 hour guided tour - Balcony House.

Leaving the visitor center, we went to the Museum and watched the 22 minute video about the ancient Pueblo people and their building of and migration from the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde.  It was very interesting.  In short, they are the ancestors of today's Hopi and Peublo Native Americans.  They built and inhabited the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde starting around 700 AD and migrating away about 1300 AD.

Our guided tour started at 12:30pm.  We drove the RV out to the mesa above Balcony House where we met up with a Ranger and 34 other people including some very young children.  We were surprised.  Tour started out by descending steep metal stairs, then along a paved path, then up a 32 ft wooden ladder to the first half of the dwelling.

We stood inside the first balcony area which had a 3 ft wall on the edge.  Archeologists guess that this half of the dwelling was where the younger children were kept as it is 600ft straight down.  There is a wall dividing the other half of the dwelling, the other side has no retaining wall.  Approximately 40 rooms all together.  Approx 45 people are believed to have lived in this dwelling.

We crawled through a small tunnel to the other side of Balcony House, where we found more rooms and a Kiva.  This is a round ceremonial and community room entered via a ladder that descends into the room.  It is uniquely engineered with a vent for airflow and hole at the top for entrance and for the smoke from the fire to rise.  This one did not have it's roof on.  There are many Kivas throughout Mesa Verde, 3 have had their roofs restored by the National Park service.  This one did not.

To exit this dwelling, we crawled through a very small tunnel on hands and knees then up a 60ft cliff face via 2 wooden ladders and foot/toe holes with metal chains and stantions to hold onto.  We were instructed to keep climbing and not look down.

The 3 girls were very glad to be back ontop the Mesa.  We have no idea how the ancient people managed to live for so many hundreds of years literally on the cliffs.  David wanted a vista picture of Balcony from the Mesa across.  So we parked at Soda Canyon Overlook and he walked 1.5 miles round trip to get the picture of the dwelling we had just visited.  While he was doing that, the girls made lunch in the RV.

We then traveled back to the museum area to do the self guided tour of Spruce Tree House.  This is a larger dwelling consisting of over 100 rooms and 8 Kivas.  It is lower in the canyon, closer to the canyon floor than Balcony House.  It requires a 1 mile trek on paved switchback path into the Canyon.  On the way down we found this cliff overhang and told the girls to pose as if they really liked each other just for a moment. :)

The photo above is of Ellie descending into one of the 3 restored Kiva's.  The ceiling is supported by almost a foot of clay above wood beams.  This same ladder style is how the ancients went in and out of their Kivas.  While it was cool down there, Mom did not think the air flow was fresh enough.  So we only stayed down for a few minutes.

We hiked back up the path and made the hour drive out of the park around 4:30pm.  We started driving East hoping to get across the San Juan mountains before dark.  But our progress just wasn't fast enough. So about 8pm we pulled into our 3rd try RV Park and found the last available site, whew!  We are camped in Pagosa Springs, CO, in the middle of the mountains and it is a lovely cool evening.  They have a lot of hummingbirds here.