Friday in Mesa Verde, part 1, Oct 21, 2022

 Cliff House at Mesa Verde was our first stop. Fascinating.

And even across the canyons, we could see sites . Everywhere. Hundreds in the Park. 

We loved every minute of it. It was hard hiking and climbing, but we did it.  Rests, water and ibuprofen. Love that drug.  

Here are some of the ladders we used to climb OUT of Cliff House area.

Kivas we're round houses. A chimney, deflector stone, plus fire pit, six pillars for the roof, which was flat. Niches with religious significance. We learned so much.

Rough , probably re-constructed  retaining walls.

Cliff House is the largest. They estimate 40 rooms, plus a layer of thirty on top, as most of these structures were multi storied. Such tiny rooms. Tiny doors and passages. Dark. Smokey from cooking and heating fires.

The "nice" archeologists of the 1920's tried putting things back the way they thought they should be. It helps. It would have been hard to tell what was there from a pile of stones. Surface structure might have been so, but some of these cliff dwellings have original walls! There was much more there, but it is amazing what these people did. Just amazing.

One ranger was a native American from an Arizona reservation. Pima, related to Pueblo and Hopi. Her people!

A lot of stuff was hauled, shaped, assembled to make these. We walked up to the area, across the front, and then up and out the other side. 

Our next stop was at a reservoir! Up on top where the people farmed. This was a self- guided walk. Very nice and quiet.

There is seepage, and a way to collect rain water and snowmelt. Layers of mud and rock on concentric circles.

And stone steps leading down in!

There have been MANY  forest fires throughout all these mesas. Above is a burned area. Below is the area with NO burns. Quite a contrast. It must have totally changed the ecosystem. Some were recorded from 1930's, and from more recent decades and years.

Their signage was SO hard to read! Who would use such a font?!

First we did Cliff House, then looked at the Mesa top dwellings. Then we drove down to Long Mesa and ate our leftovers from last night for a good picnic lunch. At a picnic table. In the sunshine. So pleasant. 68 degrees F. Sunny. Slight breeze. Couldn't have been any better.