Friday, March 2, 2012

Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

Yep, another of my husbands “must see” vacation destinations, and this time we got to see cliff dwellings!...“Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table, offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300. Today, the park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States.” (source)

Imagine coming to the edge of that cliff and looking down. There is no way you’d know there were people living right beneath you. Well, unless you approached from where I’m standing, then all bets are off.
A winding trail led from where I took those pictures down to the bottom of the ravine. Naturally I had to stop and investigate the plant life on the way down…this is a Gambel Oak (Quercus gambelii)
Yucca baccata

And a mix of Y. baccata and an Opuntia.
Once we were actually in the cliff dwelling (this one is called Spruce Tree House) I was a little disappointed. It looked like a Hollywood set, too cleaned up and restored.

Still, if I managed to suspend the critical voice for a bit it was a very amazing place. At least the smoke on the ceiling hadn’t been cleaned up.
More info from the National Park Service… “Spruce Tree House, the third largest cliff dwelling…was constructed between A.D. 1211 and 1278…The dwelling contains about 130 rooms and 8 kivas, or ceremonial chambers, built into a natural alcove measuring 216 feet…at greatest width and 89 feet…at its greatest depth. It is thought to have been home for about 60 to 80 people. The cliff dwelling was first discovered in 1888, when two local ranchers chanced upon it while searching for stray cattle. A large tree, which they identified as a Douglas Spruce (later called Douglas Fir), was found growing from the front of the dwelling to the mesa top. It is said that the men first entered the dwelling by climbing down this tree, which was later cut down by another early explorer.”
This tree climbing brings up an interesting point. In order to reach these cliff homes you either climbed up, or down, some sort of ladder. No elevator, no ADA facilities, no special ramp for the pregnant, or those suffering a broken ankle…
Hiking back up to the visitor center on the other side of the ravine there were more stops to admire the plants (uhm…maybe even more stops going up than there were going down…). Verbascum grows pretty much everywhere doesn’t it?
Oregon Grape (Berberis repens), according to the helpful signage a tea made from the leaves was used to cleanse the blood and cure anemia, some Navajos incorporated the leaves and twigs into a treatment for rheumatism and the roots helped to treat syphilis and dysentery.
Mormon Tea (Ephedra viridis)…I’ve always thought the common name of this plant had something to do that there were virtually no leaves to make tea from.
But I learned you actually can make a medicinal tea from the stems, it is used as a decongestant or diuretic.
More of the scenery as we climbed back to the top…
Big Sagebrush (Artemesia tridentata)…prehistorically a tea brewed from the leaves was used as a purge or emetic and for treating respiratory ailments and worms. The fruit can be eaten.

Once we were back in the visitor’s center I felt transported back to grade school…look at these old time informational displays!

Before we left the park we drove around a bit to places where you could look down on other cliff dwellings…
I admired one last Yucca before getting in the car…

…and coming across this fellow out for a stroll, Hello Mr. Coyote!

17 comments:

  1. Gorgeous photos! Now I want to go there.

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  2. Amazing photos, I love cave dwellings, especially in locations like that.

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    1. The flat open surroundings make the enclosed hidden dwellings all the more mysterious!

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  3. Mesa Verde Park is one of my all-time favorite places. Did you have to climb the ladders to visit the kivas? Maybe there is a new, more accessible way to get there now, but that was the only option when we were there some (many!) years ago.

    The whole place is so gorgeously, sparely vegetated, that it's easy to see and admire the few yuccas and other desert plants. That's my idea of perfect landscape design.

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    1. Yep, still just ladders down into the Kivas. And a family with 3 boys was there the same time we were, they LOVED climbing up and down the ladders. I only made it into one.

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  4. Beautiful! I've never been to Mesa Verde but your post gave me a good idea of what it's like.

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    1. Glad I could act as your virtual tour guide.

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  5. Wow, those cliff dwelling are amazing. Have never seen anything like that before. I have seen the cave ones in Jordan (?) on TV, but I think they were used for burial not for living in. I have always wanted to go sightseeing in the Americas but unfortunately will never be able to afford to. The only other place I've always wanted to go to is Japan so I could see the cherry blossom.

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    1. Never say never Liz...anything could happen. I hope you get the opportunity.

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  6. That first photo is cool!

    I ken what you are saying about the dwellings looking a bit sterile up close though.

    I grow Ephedra geradiana, it's a more prostrate version of the one you saw up above. I bought it at Cally Gardens nursery and it seems to do okay here.

    Talking about Cally Gardens I noticed that they have their new catalogue out and it is getting close to when they open again so I may arrange for a trip down to see my in-laws and then take a sneaky run over there to see if they have anything that catches my eye (they have more for sale at the nursery than listed in the catalogue).

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  7. What an amazing place! I'm sure there is a good reason why it was "cleaned up." Probably anything portable that scientists or naturalists studying the place took away, would have left in someone's pocket or purse, given that it is open to the public. It would have been many times worse to have a fake table setup with velvet ropes barring the public, for the sake of seeing what it might have been like to live there, or what tools they used. I'd rather see it spare and empty like you've shown it, with tools, eating utensils, etc. in the hands of those who are qualified to study them.

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    1. The clean-up that I was reacting to was, for the most part, a restoration effort, I believe. I completely agree that a staged dwelling would have been horrid. I guess there are many more that are not open to the public and their locations are a closely guarded secret, this allows them to remain as they were found.

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  8. These dwellings have always fascinated me. It makes me wonder what made them want to live there, were they threatened by another group, were they too cheap to build real roofs? I'm not totally speluncaphobic (how's that for a term?), but I don't want to spend any time more than necessary in caves, so I would have likely been a self-imposed outcast in this society.

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    1. This is the same thinking my husband was working out when we were there. It is not a civilization at it's prime, it's like they were in retreat, hiding. As for your speluncaphobic tendencies you would be surprised how open they felt, well...until you were inside one of the dark smoky interior rooms...

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  9. You saw a coyote too! Thanks for sharing your link. I guess I missed this post when you first wrote it. And I'm glad to see the inside of Spruce Tree House since that's currently closed to visitors. What a hoof that must have been back up to the top though, eh?

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