Mesa Verde National Park, NM

Today started out with a ranger guided tour of one of the largest cliff dwelling people in New Mexico. They lived in Mesa Verde for over 700 years at what is now called the Cliff Palace. It had 150 rooms and 21 kivas, which are round underground structured with an adobe roof that were used as meeting places, religious ceremonies and community gatherings for the people that lived in the city. It was abandoned in around 1300 BC and no one knows exactly why. It was very interesting going down to the city built under a huge rock outcropping. The pathways were narrow and you could also see ancient adobe cities in the other rock overhangs. It was an area of many inter related cities and farming along the river.
We then took a drive around a loop at the end of the park with 10 stops, each describing the Pueblo Indian housing over the many centuries and how it evolved. Each stop had an evolutionary theme and our audio guide we used was narrated by a native Pueblo Indian ranger at the park. Some of the stops were overlooks that had views across the canyon to the Pueblo cities built into the caves in the walls.
Next was a hike through Petroglyph Trail. Along the trail is a wall of ancient Pueblo petroglyphs carved into the rock wall. It was a difficult hike with many sheer stairsteps of carved stone. There were many views along the way of each side of the canyon and up-close views of the giant boulders that have cleaved off and fallen down over the centuries. Even though it was just about a 2 mile hike, the vertical change was 600 feet. It was a very scenic and beautiful hike, just a little difficult due to the terrain. The people that lived here must have been really good at traversing the ledges and boulders to move from on Pueblo city to another.Read more