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The Mysterious Anasazi Cliff Dwellings at Mesa Verde, - Page 2

© Brian Salisbury

When I visited Mesa Verde National Park, I took the scenic loop for 21 miles to Chapin Mesa to see the most elaborate cliff dwellings.

Touring Cliff Palace involves descending approximately 100 feet on a steep trail into the canyon. Once in the dwelling, visitors must climb four ladders between six to ten feet in height to see the different rooms and to reach the exit trail leading away from the palace.

Cliff Palaces once contained 151 rooms and housed 100 to 150 people. Most of the daily routine took place in the courtyards in front of the rooms. Fires built in the summer were mainly for cooking. In winter, when the rooms were damp and cold, fires probably burned throughout the village. Smoke-blackened walls and ceilings are reminders of the biting cold these people lived with for half the year.

Take some extra time to see it all.

From vantage points along the canyon rim, visitors can see many other, less elaborate, dwellings carved into the canyon walls.

While I spent only a few hours in the park, a visit to Mesa Verde deserves at least a day -- maybe two. It takes a while to see the wide variety of dwellings and to appreciate the Anasazi accomplishments in community living, architecture, building construction, engineering and the arts that rank among the finest expressions of human culture in ancient America.

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