1993/07 Rockies trip - Mesa Verde |
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Tuesday July 13th
We were running out of time and John and Edna chose to come back home via Mesa Verde instead of the dinosaur quarries. We didn't have time for both, so we headed east the next day, through the Navajo and Ute reservations.
We took a brief detour up Monument Valley for lunch, just far enough to see some of the buttes and mesas used in the Hollywood westerns. They look like volcanic cores but they are actually sedimentary rocks, capped and protected by patches of harder rock.
We also stopped at the Four Corners Monument, where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico all meet. When the US government set the state boundaries it specified them as lines of latitude and longitude, which sounds simple but the surveyors back in the 1860s put the markers in the wrong places, so there have 
been disputes for over a hundred years. With four states and two reservations involved it's 
amazing anything ever gets done.
There used to be just a simple concrete monument but now the area is a big market, run by the Navajo nation, with flags flying and stalls selling jewelry, paintings, and food. The actual corner is now festooned with markers and boundary lines so that we tourists can pose with the geography.
Late that afternoon we camped at Cortez, just inside Colorado, and then spent the evening climbing around the 
Anasazi cliff dwellings up on Mesa Verde, which sits maybe 2000ft above the surrounding area. It was nice to get back among the green after all those days in desert country.
The cliff dwellings were built by the Anasazi (now called the Ancestral Puebloans) about 800 years ago. 
They grew crops up on the Mesa, but preferred to live in what were shallow caves below the rim. Over time the caves became cliff dwellings, out of the rain, shaded in summer, and easier to defend.
Below the living areas were round rooms accessed through their roofs. These were called Kivas and they had 
religious significance. John is shown exiting a kiva. There were other ladders to help us get around but we don't know if the Anasazi had anything similar.
There are quite a few dwellings that we could walk to. I think we went to Spruce Tree House and the Cliff Palace, but I can't be sure.
The buildings were only in use for about a century. It is believed that the people all left the area to escape from extreme drought.
From up high in our campsite, we could see the storms moving around the countryside, and watch some gorgeous patterns as the sun set.