Though the sunbaked oak rungs seared my palms, letting go was not an option as I climbed toward Balcony House.
The wooden ladder was only 30 feet long, but it stretched back roughly 800 years to the time of Kublai Khan, Marco Polo and the people who lived along this remote mesa top.
Minutes after stepping off the ladder, I stood on the cliff dwelling’s plaza with its airy terrace overlooking Soda Canyon near the southern tip of Mesa Verde National Park. A thigh-high balustrade of rock separated the terrace from the canyon’s void, while far off to the east, the San Juan Range’s snowcapped peaks tantalized on this hot summer day.
A southerly tilted layer cake of salmon-hued sandstone and umber-tinted shale laid down 65 million to 70 million years ago by a shallow sea, Mesa Verde actually is an assemblage of 15 fingers that erosion cut deeply into the bedrock.
Fifteen hundred years ago, American Indians settled on the wildlife-rich mesa top. They lived within semi-buried pit houses about A.D. 500, then moved into adobe villages 500 years
later. By A.D. 1,100 most of the mesa’s estimated 3,000-5,000 inhabitants had gone under the rim. Perhaps it was fear of attack – or merely shelter from the rain, snow and glaring sun – that drove them into the alcoves perched precariously on the canyon lips.
Whatever the cause, within the rock chasms that pepper the Cliff House sandstone formation they erected hundreds of stone honeycombs, with interconnecting apartments, granaries and subterranean chambers called kivas that played a spiritual role in their lives. Built early in the 13th century, Balcony House today harbors only the wind, mice, birds and lizards. But eight centuries ago, it was one of many villages that clung to Mesa Verde’s sandstone alcoves.
A mysterious culture
Mesa Verde, which means “green table” in Spanish, is an outdoor museum of hallowed ground. Twenty-four tribes claim spiritual ties to the mesa that soars some 700 feet above southwestern Colorado’s surrounding lowlands. Here the National Park Service preserves a cultural landscape we don’t fully comprehend. Where a society once flourished there now is only evidence of a vanished people: ruins dotted with kivas, towers and countless relics from a people known simply as “Ancestral Puebloans.”
By about 1300, Mesa Verde had been abandoned. No one knows exactly why. Speculation includes a quarter-century-long drought, social and political problems or just the desire to move on.
Then and now Mesa Verde is a demanding landscape. It is torturously dry at times, grooved by rugged, talus-littered canyons and susceptible to wildfire. Yet the Ancestral Puebloans, who lacked the finely woven cottons and silks of their far-flung global contemporaries, were fearless architects, masterful potters and basketmakers, and tenacious survivors.
They tended patchwork fields of corn, beans and squash, and hunted deer and rabbit. Plants provided not only food and medicines but fibers to weave sandals and baskets, make rope and fashion paint brushes for decorating their pottery in bold and distinctive patterns. They built water catchments and relied on the stars to tell them when to plant their crops.
But these American Indians are best remembered today for their architecture. Scattered across Mesa Verde are nearly 5,000 archaeological sites, including a sprawling village complex at Far View and the mazelike, but mysteriously unfinished, Sun Temple. Six hundred or so cliff dwellings have been identified.
Without levels, tape measures or bags of Portland cement, the Stone Age masons used river-rock hatchets to cleave bread-loaf-sized sandstone blocks, stacking them to raise elaborate shelters. Logs of juniper became roof beams and, subsequently, flooring for the next story of apartments. As clans grew, the men would slowly expand an outcrop of a few connected rooms into sprawling villages. Once the rooms were built, women would decorate the interior walls.
In his search for coal, geologist S.E. Osborn reached Mesa Verde in 1884 and was astounded by the sight of “thousands of cliff houses. Every available spot is covered with them.”
Reaching the dwellings, he soon discovered, was not easy.
“In climbing the cliffs on the route I took, I found footsteps cut in the rock and think the people who lived here must have gone up in the same way that I did,” Osborn recounted. “When I arrived I found a perpendicular cliff about 40 feet high, which I climbed by the aid of a rope, which I threw onto a small cedar at the risk of breaking my neck. But I was well repaid for my trouble by finding a building at least 250 feet in length, six stories in height in the front and from four to six rooms deep into the cliff.”
Osborn might have been describing Cliff Palace. The 151-room palace, the park’s largest cliff dwelling, is the most notable fortress of the Ancestral Puebloans’ Mesa Verde empire. Smaller dwellings are wedged into numerous alcoves found in Soda, Cliff, Navajo, Wickiup, Long and Rock canyons.
New access to ruins
Only five of the cliff dwellings – Balcony House, Cliff Palace, Long House, Spruce Tree House and Step House – are open to the public. Scores of others can be seen from park roads, seemingly hanging on cliff sides, but perilous approach routes and unstable ruins keep them out of public reach. An exception will be during the park’s centennial celebrations this year as park officials are allowing horseback rides to Spring House, as well as ranger-led hikes to views of Oak Tree House and Mug House. Oak Tree House has been closed since the 1930s, and Mug House has never been open to the public.
Time was deconstructing these dwellings when they were discovered by Osborn and area ranchers Al and Richard Wetherill in the 1880s. Though the five dwellings open to the public have been meticulously reconstructed, when Osborn and the Wetherills stumbled upon them, many of the ruins consisted of just a few standing dwellings surrounded by piles of dust and rubble.
Today, thick, black smoke stains on the alcoves’ coarse walls show clearly where fires blazed for cooking and warmth. Centuries-old juniper beams, some a bit frayed on their ends, remain in place in many of the rooms, while ladders placed by the National Park Service mimic those that must have been used to enter rooms above the first story. At Long House, the inhabitants somehow drilled holes into the sandstone floor near the steps and chiseled small troughs to direct the water into these holes. Their wooden ladles dipped water neatly from these holes.
At Spruce Tree House, I descended by ladder through a 2-by-2-foot opening into a kiva and paused to let my eyes adjust to the dim light. Near the center of the roughly 15-foot-
wide room stands a small deflecting wall that shielded a fire pit from air currents flowing into the kiva via a ventilation shaft. Near the opposite wall is the “sipapu,” a small hole in the ground the Ancestral Puebloans believed led to the spiritual Third, or Lower, World.
For a few minutes I stood in the darkness, sensing the setting’s spirituality. To be able momentarily to share that space with the ancient ones proved as awe-inspiring to me as did the setting back in the Balcony House, where I shared their view out into the world.
Kurt Repanshek is the author of “National Parks of the West for Dummies.”
INSIDER’S GUIDE
Mesa Verde National Park marks its 100th birthday on June 29. In honor of the centennial, the park and its surrounding communities crafted a year-long celebration that debuted Dec. 8. To track dates for American Indian dances, demonstrations and storytelling, as well as other events throughout the year, check nps.gov/meve.
As precarious as some of the cliff dwellings might appear, negotiating them on ranger-led tours is not dangerous. Because of its 30-foot ladder, the Balcony House tour is deemed the “most adventurous” tour in the park. No need to be in super shape to conquer the ladder, but knee problems or fear of heights could be limiting factors. Some also might be discouraged by the exit from the dwelling, which entails scrambling through a 13-foot-long, 18-inch-wide tunnel on hands and knees.
Tours of the other dwellings require only an ability to negotiate some stairs and pathways.
CELEBRATE
Birthday party: June 29 through July 2 inside the park and around Mancos, Dolores and Cortez is the big Centennial Celebration, with Indian dancers, art exhibits, a quilt contest, concerts, traders fair and special tours through the park. On June 29 at the Far View Terrace (15 miles from the entrance), the park will throw its big bash for free with “Walk Back in Time,” complete with characters depicting different periods from the park’s history, cake and a barbecue, a tribal blessing and representatives from 24 tribes associated with the park. Visit mesaverde2006.org for details.
Ranger-guided backcountry hiking tours: Mug House has never been open to the public and Oak Tree House has been closed since the mid-1930s, so take advantage of the specially guided hikes to the backcountry being offered by the National Park Service, which will afford access to these two dwellings. Memorial Day-Sept. 30, prices and schedules to be determined, visit mesaverde2006.org.
Indian Arts & Western Culture Festival, May 26-June 3: American Indian artists, Indian dances, native music.
Music in the Mountains, July 16-Aug. 6: The 20th anniversary of the concert series held at the Spruce Tree Canyon Overlook. For schedule, visit mesaverde2006.org.
Mancos Valley Balloon Festival, Sept. 29-Oct. 1: Balloons will be released over Mesa Verde at times to be determined.
Mesa Verde’s Art & Wine Festival, Oct. 6-7: Local artists, regional vintners and a winemaker’s dinner at the Metate Room restaurant. For reservations call 800-449-2288.
STAY
Far View Lodge, Mesa Verde National Park, 800-449-2288, visitmesaverde.com. With 150 rooms, this simple motor lodge offers the only accommodations inside the park. Open late April through late October. Doubles from $105.
Flagstone Meadows B & B, Mancos 800-793-1137, flagstonemeadows.com. Each of the eight large rooms, which feature a Southwestern or Indian decor, comes with a private bath and includes full breakfast and evening dessert. Ten minutes from Mesa Verde. Open year-round. Doubles from $95.
Kelly Place, 14663 Road G, Cortez 970- 565-3125, kellyplace.com. Just west of Cortez, this bed-and-breakfast offers rooms in the main lodge, as well as cabins. Twenty miles from Mesa Verde. Doubles from $75.
Camping: The park’s Morefield Campground with its 435 sites surrounded by groves of gambel oak is 4 miles inside the park. Sites, some with hookups, begin at $20. No reservations. Open early May to early October. Call 970-565-2133. No backcountry camping is allowed in the park.
DINE
The Metate Room, Far View Lodge, Mesa Verde National Park, 970-529-4422. Ensconced within the main lodge building, plaster walls and plank ceiling imbuing a pueblo feeling, this restaurant is named for the stone grinders used by Ancestral Puebloans. South-facing windows provide sweeping views of the park and catch sunrise and sunset. Chef Todd Halnier’s menu lends a Southwestern flair to wild game, beef, fish and poultry. Examples include the 8-ounce elk tenderloin rubbed with chili and the Rocky Mountain trout dusted with blue corn meal then pan fried. Late April through late October, 5 p.m.-9:30 p.m. No reservations. Entrees, $17-$30. Desserts, $3-$7.50.
Far View Terrace and Marketplace, Mesa Verde National Park, 970-533-7731. It isn’t fancy, but this cafeteria-style eatery near the Far View visitor center offers meals for the price-conscious. Breakfasts are built around scrambled eggs, sausage and bacon, pancakes or French toast, and fresh fruit. Lunches and dinners involve burgers, pizza, spaghetti and the trademark Navajo Tacos. Early May through mid-October. Entrees, $6-$8.
Shiloh Steakhouse, 5 South Veach, Cortez, 970-565-6560. Elk, steaks, chicken and fajitas are the mainstays at this downtown eatery, although you will also find burgers and seafood. If the weather’s nice, ask for a table on the patio. Lunch and dinner, open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Entrees, $13-$53.
Francisca’s Restaurant and Cantina, 125 East Main, Cortez, 970-565-4093. Mexican standbys such as chimichangas and enchiladas are joined by house specials such as the Tres Conquistadores, which are vegetarian rellenos served with beans, sopaipilla and chile sauce, and the Tamale Plate, which features three tamales (pork or meatless) served with refried beans, a red or green sauce, rice and a sopaipilla. Tuesday through Saturday, 4 p.m.-9 p.m. Entrees, $6-$13. Lunch, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
INFORMATION
Mesa Verde National Park, 970-529-4465; nps.gov/meve.ARAMARK Mesa Verde, 800-449-2288, visitmesaverde.com (ARAMARK is the park concessionaire; it runs the motel, restaurant and Far View Market.)
– Kurt Repanshek and Kyle Wagner
