To break up the drive to Nebraska, we spent several nights in Colorado. Our main point of interest on our way there was Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa Verde is Spanish for “green table” and it occupies over 52,000 acres of the Colorado Plateau. I learned that the park should actually be called “Cuesta Verde”. Cuesta is the proper geological term for the area as instead of being relatively flat like a mesa, a cuesta dips in one direction. Mesa Verde is inclined slightly to the south around seven degrees and erosion has created a series of canyons and smaller “mesas''. The elevation range of the park is 6000 feet to 8,572 feet at Park Point.

Mesa Verde National Park preserves and protects what remains from the Ancestral Pueblo People who settled in this area 1,400 years ago. Mesa Verde was inhabited for more than 700 years, progressing from the Basketmakers who settled here around A.D. 550 and built pit houses to the stone masonry of the cliff dwellers near the end of the inhabitation. Mesa Verde was deserted by A.D. 1300; the cliff dwellers migrated south to settle in what is now New Mexico and Arizona. Today there are 26 tribes associated with the park. More information about the Ancestral Pueblo People can be found on the NPS website.

We arrived at Mesa Verde close to sunset and witnessed a beautiful evening on our drive in. We stayed one night at Far View Lodge in the park, which was a simple, comfortable lodge. The lodge is in a great location within the park; it can take some time to drive the windy, curvy road into the park, so it was nice to be conveniently located for our tours the next morning. The main attraction at Mesa Verde is doing a tour of one of the dwellings. Due to road construction, Cliff Palace, the largest dwelling in the park, was closed for the summer (and there were changes to some of the other tours due to Covid). I knew tours sold out pretty much immediately, especially for the ranger led backcountry tours that had limited times and tickets, so I made sure I was ready to go the second tickets were released online. I was fortunate to obtain tickets to two tours: Square Tower and Long House.

Our first tour of the day was Square Tower House, a cliff dwelling that is the tallest standing architecture in the park (four stories, 27 feet tall). The site has been stabilized and preserved and is around 90% original, including an intact kiva roof, original plaster and paint, and rock art. The residents carved hand-and-toe holds into the cliff face and used ropes and ladders to scale the canyon walls. Luckily our route did not include hand-and-toe holds, but it did include some ladders on the half mile and 100 foot descent. The park warns this is strenuous with steep drop-offs and each hiker must be able to “scramble over boulders and navigate steep gravel trails unassisted”. We found the hike fine, although the ranger said he has had people turn around when they get to the ladders. It was neat to see Square Tower House from above and then to see it up close. I always enjoy ranger led hikes/tours and this was a great tour.

Our tour of Long House was later in the day, so we had some time to tour the park before then. We drove the rest of the Mesa Top Loop and stopped at the points of interest. We purchased a small guide that was useful for information about what we were seeing. Although we couldn’t do a tour of Cliff Palace, we at least got to see it from the Cliff Palace Viewpoint. Cliff Palace is North America’s largest cliff dwelling with 150 rooms and 21 kivas. Even from a distance, it was impressive to see! Next we made the drive to Wetherill Mesa. Long House is at the end of this road and nearby is Step House, which we could self-tour prior to our Long House tour. There is a paved, one mile trail to Step House (a 100 foot descent), which is located in a large alcove. There was a ranger on duty to answer any questions as we walked through. The NPS website notes that what makes Step House unique is that “it provides clear archeological evidence of two separate occupations—a Basketmaker III (BM III) pithouse community dating to early 600s CE, and a Pueblo III (P III) masonry pueblo dating to the 1200s.”

Our last tour of the day was Long House. Instead of being ranger-led, this tour was “ranger-assisted”. Unfortunately this was a change due to Covid and a ranger gave us a talk before we hiked down to the cliff dwelling (mainly safety and dos and don’ts), we hiked the mile and 130 feet down to Long House by ourselves, and there was a ranger in the dwelling to answer any questions; but I would have greatly preferred actually having a ranger lead the hike and tell us about Long House. It was still neat though to walk through Long House. It’s the second largest cliff dwelling in the park and there is a lot to see (plus, some nice views of the landscape).

It would have been easy to spend another day at Mesa Verde, but this was the only day we had and I felt we made the best of it - it was time for us to head to our next destination. We had one quick last stop at Park Point on our way out of the park. Park Point is the highest point in Mesa Verde at 8,752 feet and there are expansive views to be had (and there is also an active fire tower). On a clear day, four states are visible: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. We walked to the end of the short trail and admired the clouds and storms we could see in the distance. Then it was time to say goodbye to Mesa Verde and continue on to Durango for the night.