On top of the world

May 27, 2018

Monday we biked about 15 miles in Durango along the Animas River. Tuesday we drove to Mesa Verde National Park.

Monday-Riding along the Animas river in Durango. Many people on kayaks, canoes, and rafts.

Our site in Durango, CO. We are just about to pull out and head to Mesa Verde. We decided not to tow the car because of a 5-mile steep uphill grade on the way. Nadene followed me in the car.

Lunch break

Written by Steve:

Mesa Verde National Park is tucked into the southwest corner of Colorado. It was unknown to me until I began studying a map of Colorado. I could have easily overlooked this speck of green on the map. What a loss if I had.

Mesa Verde lives up to its name. The table top mountain rises to 8,000 feet and the steep sides of the mesa are covered with the deep green of pinion pine and juniper. As you get closer you can see the sandstone cut into blocks, spires and alcoves by millions of years of erosion. Like any national park, you are surrounded by beauty. But the park rangers downplay the natural splendor of Mesa Verde and elevate the historical significance of the park. A prehistoric Pueblo Indian culture flourished here from 550 to 1300 AD. No one knows why the Puebloans left Mesa Verde and abandoned the 600 cliff dwellings constructed over 100-200 years. They had no written language, so it is left to archaeologists to study the more than 4000 sites for clues. Those clues show a steady progress in building techniques starting with pit houses (3-foot-deep holes in the ground with wood walls and mud roofs) and ending with stone cliff dwellings containing up to 150 rooms.

Some of the cliff dwellings can be seen on self-guided tours but the best ones can only be seen in the company of a Park Ranger. We toured Balcony House with Park Ranger Venacio. His knowledge and dry sense of humor made the hour-long tour fun and informative. The tour required climbing a 32-foot-long wooden ladder, crawling through a tunnel just wide enough for my shoulders and exiting the dwelling up steps cut into the stone 700 years ago. Venacio warned everyone before the tour began that once the 32-foot ladder was climbed there was no turning back. His warning made 1/3 of our group return to the security of the bus. The wooden ladder used to enter the site was an easy climb but the stone steps that led up out of the site was a scary ascent. Nadene found that climb to be the only frightening part of the tour and she only did it because the alternative was living in the cliff dwelling forever. (It was dry, warm, had a good view and a water source but no Wi-Fi).

Water bottle in my pants to free my hands

Worth the climb to be up here

Valencia was an entertaining and informative park ranger

Kivas are always round, a feature in Pueblo villages today and 1000 years ago. Balcony House had two Kivas. They are thought to have been for ceremonial functions and for community meetings. Today they have a strictly religious function. Their construction is interesting. What is shown in the picture is a deep pit with stone blocks lining the walls. This stone would have been covered with plaster to make a smooth wall. The stone pilasters seen spaced around the circumference of the room held wooden poles. The poles were woven together like a basket. This wooden roof was then covered with thatch and mud. In the center was an opening for entry and to allow smoke to exit.

In the center of the floor is a pit where a fire was lit. Of course, the fire would have consumed oxygen, so it was necessary to have ventilation to admit fresh air. On one side of the room can be seen a square opening to an air shaft and in front of the opening is a diverting wall. This wall forced entering air to move to the side rather than directly to the fire. This prevented ash and embers from being blown about the room.

Opposite the fresh air shaft and in line with the fire is a hole in the floor. Archaeologists had no idea why this hole was there. This same construction can be found in modern day Kivas, so the archaeologists asked what purpose it served. It is symbolic of the emergence of humans from underworlds to the surface of the earth. Present day Pueblo Indians tell an intricate story of how they emerged out of the darkness of the underworlds. The symbolic hole found in modern Kivas are linked to the holes found in ancient Kivas. To me this means the Ancient Puebloans did not disappear. They simply moved, and their ancestors continue to live nearby.

Nadene:

Wednesday we drove to Canyonlands National Park. To me this park is the most spectacular we have seen yet. Miles and miles of vast canyons with towers and mesas and no foliage visible. There is no way our pictures can give you a true sense of the vastness, the colors, the harshness of the canyons. It looks like the earth cracked open to show its dark secrets.

A close up of the picture above it.

On Friday we hiked Slickrock Foot Trail in the Park. This means walking for over 3 miles on rocks. Up and down and over rocks. Because there is no trail to be seen and you cannot see the footprints of others on the rocks, the rangers have marked the trail with piles of rocks. Sometimes we had to look hard for the next direction to go. Without them we would have been so lost. The views were so awesome. I must have said, “Oh, my stars!” the most times this week of all the weeks we have been traveling. This park is unbelievable.