Story & Photo By Stan Wawer
My heart started to work its way into my throat as I descended the narrow path that lead to Long House cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde National Park. I stayed as close as I could to the cliff walls without hugging them. One false step and I would drop thousands of feet without any chance of doing a tuck and roll at the bottom, brushing myself off and walking away.
It’s a wonder how a civilization could build these dwellings without modern tools and then go about their daily lives hovering 5,000 feet above the canyon floor. Mesa Verde is an extraordinary record of the ancestral Puebloans (once known as the Anasazi), who made this place their home for more than 750 years, from A.D. 550 to A.D. 1300 before disappearing to who knows where.
“Someone on a tour once wondered why they lived in the cliffs and didn’t go to Mexico and fish,” said our Long House guide, Ranger Kathleen Whitacre. The Puebloans were farmers, not fishermen. They would have no concept of the sea, let alone any area outside Mesa Verde.
Mesa Verde National Park is even remote by today’s standards. It sits in the southwest corner of Colorado near the famous Four Corners region where four states — Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah — connect. President Teddy Roosevelt established Mesa Verde as a national park on June 26, 1906 to “preserve the works of man.”
Mesa Verde is more than 52,000 acres, with the National Park Service preserving and protecting nearly 5,000 archeological sites. That includes 600 cliff dwellings and more than 3 million objects and archives.
The Long House tour is $3 per person regardless of age and lasts about one and a half hours. It’s located on Wetherill Mesa, about a 45-minute drive from Far View Visitor Center. You climb three ladders — two of 15 feet and one of 4 feet. It is a 3/4-mile round trip hike with a 130-foot elevation gain to the exit. The National Park Service classifies the tour as strenuous. It’s not so much the walk down to Long House; it’s the walk back up. The day I did it with my son and 5-year-old granddaughter, it was August and the temperature was pushing the 100-degree mark. It added to my respect for the Puebloans.
Cliff House and Balcony House are two other outstanding cliff dwelling tours. Balcony House is really an adventure with its 32-foot ladder to enter the dwelling, 12-foot-by-18-inch wide tunnel, a 60-foot climb along an open rock face and two 10-foot ladders to exit. Phew! It’s scary just writing about it.
Tickets for all these guided tours are $3 and are purchased at the Far View Visitor Center. Spruce Tree House is self-guided. There are no ladders or steps on the paved trail that descends 100 feet with steep grades. Four benches are available for the strenuous return trip. My philosophy? Walk a little, rest a little. Mesa Verde also has a number of self-guided activities.
“Ancestral Puebloans grew crops and hunted game on the mesa tops,” Whitacre said as she held up a metate, a ground stone tool used for processing grain and seeds. “They reached their fields by hand-and-toe-hold trails pecked into the canyon walls.”
The cliff dwellings have stood the test of time. As I walked through the well-preserved Long House, it was easy to envision what life must have been like for these people. One thing is certain, the Ancestral Puebloans were adept at building and skillful at making a living from a difficult land.
“Using nature to advantage, Ancestral Puebloans built their dwellings beneath the overhanging cliffs,” Whitacre explained. “Their basic construction material was sandstone that they shaped into rectangular blocks about the size of a loaf of bread. The mortar between the blocks was a mix of dirt and water.”
Living rooms averaged about 6 feet by 8 feet and isolated rooms in the rear and on the upper levels were generally used for storing crops. Their only domestic animals were dogs and turkeys. The turkey was an all-around “pet,” providing food, feathers used in weaving and bones used for tools.
The Ancestral Puebloans left no written history making it difficult to know the entire story of their civilization. “Fortunately,” Whitacre said. “Ancestral Puebloans tossed their trash close by. Scraps of food, broken pottery and tools, anything not wanted, went down the slope in front of their dwellings. Much of what we know about daily life here comes from these garbage heaps.”
If you go
Far View Lodge is the only indoor accommodations in the park. It closes each year in late October. For more information and prices, go to www.visitmesaverde.com. Morefield Campground, which also closes in October, has a camp store, café, RV and tent camping, showers, laundry and fuel. A number of accommodations are available in Cortez in the late fall, winter and early spring.
Getting there
Mesa Verde National Park is about 750 miles and 12 hours from Los Angeles via the Foothill (210) Freeway east to the Ontario (15) Freeway north (toward Las Vegas) to Interstate 40 east through Flagstaff and on to Cortez. You might want to include stops at Monument Valley and Four Corners as long as you are in the area.
All information is accurate at the time of publication but prices, dates and other details are all subject to change. Confirm all information before making any travel arrangements.
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