Driving from our San Jaun camp to Mesa Verde, we stopped in the Wal-Mart parking lot of Durango for some roasted pepper and avocado wraps. We got lots of gawking from the locals. Just for that we didn’t share.
Our tent site at Mesa Verde National Park. It was so windy we decided to stake all 10 tent loops. The ground was hard as hell too; I bent three of the stakes over sideways trying to pound them into this dry gravel.
Some free horses we found in the park. Jess McC: I'm sorry I missed your birthday. Your present is in the mail. Happy 30th!!!
The road up to the top of the mesa is about 17 miles of winding cliff edges. Here’s a look from one of the photo ops. Here we’re at 8300 feet. The plain in the distance is at around 6000.
Spruce House. We didn’t go in.
Balcony House. This one we visited. Entry required climbing a 32 foot wooden ladder. Cake compared to my rock climbing experience. You can tell these guys liked to burn stuff by all the black char on the overhangs.
The ancestral Puebloans lived on these mesa tops for some 800 years up to around 1300. These cliff dwellings, however, were only built in the last 100 years of their time here. Why did they leave? Nobody knows for sure...
A free mule deer.
Burger and brew for lunch before we left.
- Trent
Also, that night we went to a Ranger Talk about the night sky and the way the Ancestral Puebloans saw the night sky. The air was so clear (except for enough haze from nearby fires to allow the Ranger's laser beam to point to stars) that the sky was so black, making the stars appear so crisply and in such multitude... Trent and I decided Ranger Jim was our hero.
- Mina
Mimi, did we climb those same ladders as kids? I recall something like that but I don't remember where it was! You guys are so cute.
ReplyDeleteRoasted peppers and avocado wraps...yummeee!!
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