Day 3 - Mesa Verde National Park

We had a great day today at Mesa Verde. There are many cliff dwellings of the ancient Puebloans in the park. Here is one that we were able to tour on our own.

It really is fascinating how they made their homes in the cliffs. They were farmers that planted corn, beans, and squash. They did all that on the top of the mesa above their homes.

This ladder led down to a Kiva - it was like their living room.

We had a nice picnic lunch before our two guided tours.

A view of the canyon between the mesas.

This is the first of the guided tours. The cliff dwellings looked neat from the top.

The climb down was tight in places and quite scary in others.

None of the vegetation was there when the Indians lived in the cliffs. They cut it all down to use the trees for different things. Their houses are rock on the outside, but wood is the internal part of the structures. Of course, cutting down the trees resulted in the animals leaving. This was a problem since that was a part of their food source.

Okay - this second one about did Tim and me in. I know that you don't think this ladder looks scary......but you are wrong. The ladders on the first tour had railings on them. This one did not, and looked like you would plunge to your death. It was 3 stories high.

Here is a partial view of the ladder after we got to the top. My knees were like jelly after I made it up.

More tight squeezes awaited us inside the dwelling.

The park ranger chose to use Mallory as an example. I love the look on her face. She was kind to go along with it. I was nervous because she kept backing up as he talked. As you can see, that edge drops off into the canyon.

These Puebloans were quite intelligent. They made structurally sound primitive houses. Why in the world couldn't they have made the tunnels a bit larger??

It was a tight squeeze. I will say that Tim took a picture as I went through. That one will be deleted.

One last ladder and it was over. It was a really neat tour, it just was a bit stressful at times. You may have read or heard about the wildfires in Arizona. The park ranger talked to us about how the smoke has made it into this area. We could see it easily as we drove out of the park.