Sunday, March 20, 2016

Mesa Verde National Park Redux

We visited Mesa Verde for the first time ever last June which is criminal considering we've lived in Colorado for over 25 years, and it appears I never wrote about it back then.  I do remember it was hot and crowded and we were tired from Too Much Driving and also some biking at Phil's World.  But in February?  You pretty much have the joint to yourself.  Unfortunately Spruce House which is the largest most intact of the cave dwellings and the one you can usually go right up to, was closed due to a rock slide.  You can get kinda close, just not right up to the dwelling.

Spruce House in February



And some close-up shots from June last year




SO much nicer in February without the teeming hordes.  We drove through more of the park this time and took our time, reading the display signs, even went to the museum.

This one was my favorite, Square Tower House



So amazing how both the original inhabitants and the modern day folk who restored it accessed the area by climbing down on carved out hand and toe holds and ropes and ladders.

Some zoomed in views of other dwellings, much farther away than they look







And a wider shot to show the scale and context of the village.


It's hard to get a sense of scale for these Kivas and pit rooms.




To give an idea if you look in the rectangular depression in the photo above you can see a little dark blob.  Zoomed in it's this poor little guy.


Kinda spooky to find him there.

Another pit room



They even had multi-story cave dwellings



And Border Collies??!!  Showing no interest in a turkey??!!



View from the visitor center parking lot



Such a magical place.  Can't believe the BLM is allowing drilling and fracking right next to this place.  On our public lands.  And charging the oil companies a pittance.  Criminal.  The BLM folks in charge right now ought to be in jail for fraud and corruption, not managing our public lands.

2 comments:

  1. Wow, thats upsetting. I had no idea that was going on.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, apparently nothing is sacred when it comes to the government and the big oil companies.

    ReplyDelete