Sept. 23, 2010 A&A Mesa Verde RV Park Campground Mancos, Colorado

We had a big rain here last night shortly after I finished the blog. Then shortly after we went to bed it came through again. We had lots of thunder and a heavy downpour. This morning we went up to Mesa Verde National Park and we could see the results of some of that heavy rain. The highway department was cleaning up the roadways from the rock and mud slides that had come down where they had cut into the side of the mountain for the road. We were surprised at the height of the mountain of Mesa Verde. It doesn’t look all that big from down here, but the altitude was over 7,000 ft. It was quite a climb, zigzagging back and forth all the way up, the views were spectacular.

The cliff dwellings were very interesting. We had seen some before, but were never able to get up close to them. The ones we had seen before, we were on the ground and looking up at them 50 to 100 feet above us. Today we went on a tour of one called Cliff Palace.


Our guide was very knowledgeable and made it all very interesting. We had to walk down some narrow and steep stairs that had been created from the rock by the CCC in the 30’s and climb a couple of wooden ladders to get to it, then repeat the process only up a different course of steeper rock stairs and longer ladders to get out. We did NOT go into the one called Balcony House that you had to “descend down a 32 foot ladder, crawl through a 12 foot tunnel that was 18 inches wide, then exit by climbing 60 feet along an open rock face and two 10 foot ladders”.

I repeat, we did not do that one. We did stop along the road and hike back to a viewpoint to see it. We were told by a park ranger that it was only about ¾ mile hike on level ground. She lied! Apparently she has never been to our area of the country because she doesn’t know what level means.

We stopped at a few other lookout points which weren’t very far off the road. It’s amazing how many cliff dwellings there are in this area. Some are quite large, the one we toured had 150 rooms, and some are very small, consisting of just a few rooms. We also stopped at the museum which was interesting, but by this point we were pretty worn out. I was having trouble breathing and Larry’s leg was hurting, so we came back to the camper. We rested up for an hour or so before going into town for a bite to eat and a stop for a few grocery items. Much to Penny and Harry’s relief, we are back to stay for the evening.