Mesa Verde National Park, CO

Monday, September 21, 2015

It is supposed to rain later today, so we left by 9am to head to Mesa Verde.

This is how the sky looked as we left.  Love those cloud formations!

This is as we entered Mesa Verde.  We saw many interesting displays, cliff dwellings and pit houses. Sorry to say this post will have lots of pictures.

We headed to the Visitor & Research Center near the entrance of Mesa Verde.  There were lots of interesting displays.  The following 8 pictures are all statues and displays at the Visitor Center.

This magnificent sculpture was displaying how they climbed the cliffs carrying food down to the dwellings.

 This beautiful sculpture was just outside the entrance to the Visitor Center.

Here's a sculpture of a story teller, passing on their history.

This woman is putting ground corn into her storage jar.

The man is using a rock to shape a stone for the dwelling. 

This is an example of their farming on the mesa tops.

Subsistence Tool Kit

Pottery and jewelry made by the Indians. 





Now we are headed to see cliff dwellings.

The first stop was Park Point Overlook at 8572ft elevation.  You can see the road we drove up.

 This was the view looking one direction.

And this was the view looking another direction.  You can see the immense valley below. 

We looked up and saw this awesome angel in the sky.  Do you see her?

We made it to our first cliff dwelling named Spruce Tree House.

This short video shows the whole Spruce Tree House.  Below are 3 closeups of different parts of the Spruce Tree House including inside one kiva.

The pictures above and below are of the cliff walls.  It is amazing to me the ruggedness of these cliffs and so many dwellings. We saw many partial dwellings that were not identified.

This dwelling was called House of Many Windows.

This large untouched dwelling was called Hemenway House.

This is looking down the canyon from the Hemenway House.

This is another unidentified ruin we happen to see.

This dwelling is called Square Tower House.  Tic was looking over an edge to get this picture. The picture below is some of the rock ledges just above this dwelling.

This dwelling was called Sun Point.  Above it was a Sun Temple.

This is the Sun Temple as we see it from across the canyon.

We drove around to the Sun Temple.  The restoration people put this pink plaster over the walls to help protect them from any further deterioration. Tic is looking over one of the outer walls.

This is looking through an opening that shows a pathway between the walls.

This dwelling was called the Cliff Palace.  We are on the opposite side of the canyon so imagine how big this is.  Tours to both the Cliff Palace and the Long House (which we could not see on our drive) stopped on September 20.  We were one day late.  

Clouds are starting to roll in.  See below.

Aren't these cool looking.  Tic says they are lenticular clouds.

 These clouds are looking angry, so we are heading home.

These clouds are over the mountains just south of Cortez.  Can you see the slight pink tint on the underside of some of the clouds?

It did not start raining until have we got into the house.  We are blessed!  We had a beautiful morning and got home dry. ☺