September 15, 2009 – Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado
On our last full day in Colorado, we toured the six-mile Mesa Top Loop Drive, visiting most of the archeological exhibits and overlooks.
Square Tower House cliff dwelling is named for the four-story-high structure standing against the curved back wall of the alcove. About 60 of the original 80 rooms of Square Tower House remain.
All of the cliff dwellings, including Square Tower House, were part of the final Mesa Verde building phase. People lived here between AD 1200 and 1300.
Small lizard on a ruin wall
After spending the morning among the ruins, we took a drive in the afternoon. At one point, we found ourselves on open range, with the road blocked by a herd of horses. As I very slowly eased the car forward, the horses parted and let us through.
Commentary and images from the road
image and information from September 15, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
Pithouse – For thousands of years, native peoples were living in the surrounding areas before coming to Mesa Verde. As with people all over the Southwest, Ancestral Puebloans lived in modest dwellings — shallow pits dug into the ground, covered with pole and mud roofs and walls, with entrances through the roofs.
In this excavation (above), what appears to be one pithouse is actually two. The larger one, built first, around AD 700, was destroyed by fire. The smaller one, which looks like an antechamber to a larger room, is actually a second pithouse built soon after the first one burned. It contains a new feature, a verticle ventilator shaft in one side, which appears in pithouses from then on — innovation!
Above is an Ancestral Puebloan kiva – an undeground religious room. The small circular hole in the floor is a sipapu, a symbolic entrance into the underworld – the Pueblo place of origin. This early kiva design was continued in the Mesa Verde villages and cliff dwellings.
Many fires have swept across Mesa Verde over time. Recent fires have exposed previously undiscovered Puebloan sites.
At our campsite on our final afternoon in
Colorado, 2009.
Mesa Verde’s Balcony House is a very memorable — and challenging — place to visit. It certainly isn’t for those who have a fear of heights or a problem with tight spaces. Those with health problems that prevent strenuous activity should not attempt this tour.
From the park website: The Balcony House tour requires visitors to descend a 100 foot staircase into the canyon; climb a 32 foot ladder; crawl through a 12 foot, 18 inches wide tunnel; and clamber up an additional 60 feet on ladders and stone steps.
The climb out:
Rain in Montezuma Valley:
Tansy Aster against a ruin wall:
Mesa Verde National Park, September 14, 2009
We had tickets for a 10 AM ranger guided tour of Balcony House. We had been to this ruin at least two other times before, the first in 1986, when we were in our mid-thirties.
To get into the ruin requires a bit of a climb, shown in the two views below and the one on the right, which exaggerates the steepness of the ladder because I had to rotate the image a little to get it all in.
Waiting to go through the small passage:
A hungry coyote zeros in on food — found on road:
Rabbitbrush with Sleeping Ute Mountain in the background:
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Commentary and images from the road
image and information from September 14, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
After supper, we took the Knife’s Edge Trail, a 2 mile round trip hike on part of the route of the original 1914 main access road into the park.
Commentary and images from the road
image and information from September 13, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
Mesa Verde National Park, September 12, 2009
Click on any of the images to view a larger version.
Cliff Palace is probably the best known of North American ruins. This was our third or fourth visit.
Click on any of the images for a larger version.
The image below is from a photograph looking back up at the tour waiting area overlook.
Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The Ancient Pueblo structure is located in Mesa Verde National Park, in the southwest corner of…Colorado, home to the Ancestral Puebloans people. (1)
(1) from Wikipedia
Commentary and images from the road
image and information from September 13, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
September 13, 2009 Mesa Verde National Park
Visits to the ruin are only by ranger guided tours. The view below is from the tour waiting area overlook.
The next photo was taken from about the same location as the people on the right in the image above:
Tree ring dating indicates that construction and refurbishing of Cliff Palace was continuous from c. AD 1190 through c. 1260, although the major portion of the building was done within a twenty-year time span. Cliff Palace was abandoned by 1300, and while debate remains as to the causes of this, some believe a series of mega-droughts interrupting food production systems is the main cause. (1)
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Karen had stopped and was starting to slowly back up before I realized what we were hearing.
We both backed up a short distance. The rattler didn’t move and I got a snapshot of it.
Commentary and images from the road
image and information from September 13, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
September 13, 2009 – Mesa Verde National Park
We were hiking the Knife’s Edge Trail near the Mesa Verde campground, with Karen in the lead, reading from the trail guide booklet, while I was trailing behind taking pictures.
Suddenly, we heard a very characteristic sound, a sound we’ve heard many times in the movies and on TV.
Most of the trail was plenty wide, but, in this area it had started to narrow a bit.
Of course, the rattlesnake blended in very well with the vegetation along the side of the trail. In the closeup crop on the right, I’ve outlined the head and tongue and added an arrow pointing to the rattle.
We didn’t turn around and go back down the trail. There was still a ways to go yet, so, from a safe distance, I started scuffing gravel and rocks toward the snake with my foot. After a little bit of that, it uncoiled and slithered into the brush, still rattling until it was a good ways off the trail.
Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado — September 12, 2009
We arrived at Mesa Verde early enough to relax for a while before heading further into the park.
(click on any of the following photos to view a larger image.)
View of the sky over Mesa Verde National Park
It’s a mother-in-law warning device! (see previous post on it.) from display at Far View Visitor Center
Spruce Tree House was constructed between AD 1211 and 1278 by the ancestors of the Puebloan peoples of the Southwest. The dwelling contains about 130 rooms and 8 kivas (kee-vahs), or ceremonial chambers, built into a natural cave measuring 216 feet (66 meters) at greatest width and 89 feet (27 meters) at its greatest depth. It is thought to have been home for about 80 people.
Knife’s Edge, location of the old pre-1950s harrowing route into the park.
Evidence of past wild fires can be seen throughout the park, some quite recent.
Spruce Tree House is the third largest cliff dwelling at Mesa Verde. Unlike other cliff dwellings in the parks, Spruce Tree House can be accessed without a ranger guided tour, though rangers will be on duty at the ruin when the trail is open.
Spruce Tree House was opened for visitation following excavation by Dr. Jesse Walter Fewkes of the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Fewkes removed the debris of fallen walls and roofs and stabilized the remaining walls.
It was discovered in 1888 by two local ranchers searching for stray cattle.
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Commentary and images from the road
image and information from September 12, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
Spruce Tree House information is from National Park Service web page — Spruce Tree House
I’ve completed another photo gallery from our visit to Rocky Mountain National Park. It includes images from Moraine Park, Bear Lake, Nymph Lake, and Dream Lake, and has photos of elk, deer, a couple of chickarees, a chipmunk, birds, wildflowers and more. (For more of my travel images see Haw Creek Galleries.)
Clicking on the any following images will open a larger copy of the photo.
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Commentary and images from the road
image and information from September 12, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
What’s a blog?
November 14, 2009
About our blogs
I’ve been blogging for several years now and currently have 3 active blogs.
I post to Exit78 the most, sharing some of my photos, vintage images I’ve discovered, and — occasionally — commentary and thoughts from retired life.
Haw Creek Out ‘n About is images and information about places — where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’d like to go, while Haw Creek is intended to be primarily related to information on recreational vehicles.
I publish posts on our travels simultaneously on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About.
Karen’s blog, Quilts….etc., as the title implies, is mostly about her quilting, but she also chats about a lot of other things that interest her.
We both have regular readers, though I think Karen has more than I do, and we both read a number of other blogs.
There are several different, though similar, definitions of the word, “blog.”
The word “blog” is a contraction of the term “weblog” or “web log.”
The term actually originated from online diarists. Early web diaries (c. 1994) evolved into web journals, then web logs, and, today, blogs.
While many hobby bloggers enjoy blogging and stick with it, most blogs actually die quite quickly. Other blogs die a slow death, with irregular, hit-and-miss posting, and then… nothing. Last year, I took a look back at the blogs I had been reading a year earlier. Less than a quarter of them were still active.
For more information on blogs and blogging see Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere – 2009 or Wikipedia’s article, Blog.
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