![\"mesa-verde-terrace-trail.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/mesa-verde-terrace-trail.jpg\" "\\"mesa-verde-terrace-trail.jpg\\"")
<\/a>I’m a big advocate of the idea of hiking a park as much as possible. \u00a0 I realize that’s not possible for everyone, but right now it works for us and so we always try to check out the lesser-known corners by making the effort to hike. \u00a0 Our first hike was an easy one, the Farming Terrace Trail near Cedar Tree Tower, about 0.5 miles. \u00a0 The Ancestral Puebloans who lived here during the time of cliff dwellings were farmers. \u00a0 They grew squash and other vegetables, including a very small variety of corn. \u00a0 Since rainwater runs off the mesas very quickly, they created small terraces to slow the water enough to irrigate their crops. \u00a0 This trail brings you right through a series of terraces.<\/p>\nThree of the most popular cliff dwellings are only accessible by guided tour ($3 per person). \u00a0 We’d seen Long House yesterday, so today we had tickets for Cliff Palace and Balcony House. \u00a0 As it turned out, this was a great order to see them in. \u00a0 Long House is a spectacular first dwelling to tour (150 rooms), and then Cliff Palace is even more elaborate (151 rooms), so you can easily see the difference.<\/p>\n
Balcony House made a fantastic final tour. \u00a0 Fair warning: this tour is not for anyone with a fear of heights or claustrophobia. \u00a0 It is considerably more psychologically challenging than the other two. \u00a0 The tour starts with a pair of 30-foot ladders mounted on the cliff above a very very long drop. \u00a0 “Don’t look down — don’t look up!” warns the ranger. \u00a0 “Just look straight ahead and keep three points of contact on the ladder at all times.” \u00a0 I didn’t look down, but I did look up and regretted it.<\/p>\n Climbing the ladder at Balcony House — click for larger <\/em><\/p>\n Once you’re inside the Balcony House, the view is stunning and you can see why it has that name. \u00a0 You also might wonder how the heck you’re going to get out of there. \u00a0 Back down that ladder? \u00a0 No, it’s even more interesting. \u00a0 You crawl through a tunnel that is 18″ high, and twelve feet long. \u00a0 (In the middle it opens up enough to crouch, but that’s all.) \u00a0 Emma made it look easy. \u00a0 The rest of us took off our packs and pushed them ahead of us.<\/p>\n Emma goes in the entrance; a tourist comes out the (larger) exit. <\/em><\/p>\n Then, you climb up a sheer rock face with chain-link handrails. \u00a0 Again, looking down is not recommended. \u00a0 It’s a looooong way to the bottom of the canyon.<\/p>\n Last challenge of Balcony House — click for larger view <\/em><\/p>\n If climbing ladders isn’t your thing, you can still see a lot of cliff dwelling sites from your car, or on a hike. Many are marked from overlooks, and a few others are just surprises. \u00a0 Just by keeping my eyes open during drives and hikes, I managed to spot and photograph more than a dozen cliff dwellings. \u00a0 The Spruce Tree House is probably the best self-guided tour, and it’s only a few hundred feet via paved walkway from the Chapin Mesa Museum parking lot.<\/p>\n At Spruce Tree House you can actually get in a restored kiva. \u00a0 Kivas had roofs made of wood, but the wood has long since rotted away, so during the guided tours you see right into the kiva, like looking at a foundation with no house on it. \u00a0 But getting into the kiva at Spruce Tree gives you a sense of the mysterious, and you can imagine the rituals going on inside while the ceremonial fire burned.<\/p>\n Kiva without roof; inside a kiva <\/em><\/p>\n From Spruce Tree house there is a very nice hike on the Petroglyph Point Trail. \u00a0 The signs claim that the total elevation gain is only 174 feet, but that doesn’t include the many ups and downs in the trail. \u00a0 In reality, I would estimate the total climb at several hundred feet — all at about 7500 feet elevation, in arid and often hot conditions. \u00a0 Bring a lot of water. \u00a0 The reward is not only some superb petroglyphs but an unnamed cliff dwelling along the trail. \u00a0 If you want to just see the petroglyphs with minimal effort, do the trail backwards (it’s a 2.8 mile loop), and turn around when you reach the petroglyphs. \u00a0 The second half of the trail is on flat mesa, very easy.<\/p>\n All this plus a short visit to the Chapin Museum accounted for a full day. \u00a0 Our last stop was for fuel, but as I expected the concessionaire-run gas station at Morefield Campground was outrageous. \u00a0 Unleaded: $4.71 per gallon. \u00a0 Seven miles away in Cortez, gas is $3.83. \u00a0 This is typical. \u00a0 When the concessionaires run things, there are more services in the parks but they always cost an arm and a leg. \u00a0 This also accounts for the campsites costing $24.05 instead of $14. \u00a0 I bought two gallons of gas \u00a0 just so we’d have a reserve to drive to Cortez for a proper refill.<\/p>\n Our stop today is Cortez, CO, to top off our reserves. \u00a0 We needed an oil change, a tank of propane, gas, groceries, a fridge defrost, and a chance to catch up on email & the blog before heading out again. \u00a0 The next four days of travel (at least) will involve places in Utah where the cell phone won’t work, Internet is just a concept, groceries are scarce, and prices for everything are likely to be high. \u00a0 I can’t say when I’ll get a chance to update the blog, but I will keep writing entries as we travel, and upload them as soon as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our plan for the day was to explore a representative sample of Mesa Verde, not everything. \u00a0 A park this size can’t be seen in one day, in fact it probably can’t all be seen in a week if you count in all the hiking trails. \u00a0 For our first visit to a big park […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>Visiting these dwellings requires climbing ladders and going up and down irregular stairs. \u00a0 The Park Service warns people about the physical challenges of these places, and in the pre-tour briefing the rangers all mention that, should you have a medical emergency, help is three hours<\/em> away. \u00a0 In reality they aren’t particularly strenuous to anyone in good health, but you can see why the rangers prefer to scare away anyone who might have a problem: \u00a0 They are the ones who will have to carry the stretcher up and out of the canyon.<\/p>\n<\/a>Something special was happening at Cliff Palace when the Puebloans lived here. It has many more kivas (round ceremonial rooms built into the ground), plastered walls, excellent masonry work, and elaborate decorations. It’s anyone’s guess as to what made this particular so much more elaborate than all the others.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n