Hey there Adventurers! Be sure to check out part 1 here!
I awoke very early the next morning to be sure to get to my tour of the Square Tower House. This was the really hard one to snag. According to the Ranger, this tour is only once a day and it was small…10 people or so, and that’s all they take. It would soon become very apparent why those restrictions exist. I had stopped by the overlook the previous afternoon and was skeptical of how one got down to this dwelling and the answer to this is that it is treacherous! The tour begins with a very thorough safety talk, and a confirmation to the ranger that you are able to to undertake this tour. The ranger explained that any issues ends the tour for everyone and it is very difficult to get an incapacitated person back up to the road level. The hike begins with a ladder descent, followed by walking along the cliffs edge, with relatively new barriers to prevent falling, only to find yourself needing to descend quite a bit down further down the cliff using ladders, fashioned to replicate the ancient ones, and also the original handholds carved into the cliff. To make matters more complicated, there is an awkward transition from handholds to ladder steps, but that’s how you had to do it! The ranger explained that this was how the ancient Puebloans did it! One of the neat things our ranger guide shared was when they lead modern Puebloans down to the site and the elders do a ceremony, essentially asking the spirits for permission to enter the home. So neat!
Square Tower House is smaller in terms of area that it covers, but contains the tallest structure in the park, a section that rises nearly 30 feet and 4 storeys tall! There are painted murals and petroglyphs found through out the site, and the site is 90 percent original! There is an intact original kiva roof, and we also found pottery that was then dug back into the ground. After about an hour and a half of touring the site and learning about it, we were back topside and I was off to the next adventure! Next up was the Balcony House Tour.
I should point of that the park and Rec.gov make it clear that its difficult to do all three of the Chapin Mesa tours in one day. I did not find that to be remotely true at all and even had time to do stops at other mesa top sites between tours. The only thing that I goofed, and I think there was a reason I had to do it, but cannot remember anymore, was the order of the tours. You would want to go from Square Tower House (which has to be the first one) to Cliff Palace, and then to Balcony house. But I arranged for Balcony House to be first, then Cliff Palace. Due to the road being a one way loop this meant I had to pass by Cliff palace to get to Balcony house, then I had to essentially do the loop again to access Cliff palace and then get out of the loop. Even with that, it was no problem getting all three of these tours in!
After departing Square tower house I headed down the one way Mesa Top Loop. I stopped at some pit house excavations sites along the way as well as viewpoints for other cliff dwellings. I also made a stop for some delicious Ute Indian fry bread! There is an interesting oddity along the Cliff Palace loop road. Between Cliff Palace and Balcony House the park road actually abuts Ute land and and there is a small area where native Utes have set up a fry bread stand and a couple art/trinket shops. If you are really interested, there is complicated history between the Utes and the NPS that you can research. The Utes also have many cliff dwelling ruins on their land and it possible to book tours with Ute outfitters. In any event this road is an amazing tour of the history of the land. There are numerous mesa top sites to explore and numerous cliff dwellings to view and read about along the way!
The Balcony House is notable for several things. The park service calls this tour the most adventurous one in the park. Of course, the house is totally unseen from above. There is a short hike to descend down the cliff. Then there is a pretty serious 30 plus foot ladder to get up into the structure, and then there is a pretty small tunnel to climb through. Once you have done those, then its exploration time! There are plenty of rooms and kivas to explore, watch your step (!), and other small tunnels to traverse through the dwelling. You will find spectacular views out of the dwelling. There are spots of the original paint, and more wall paintings and petrogylphs. Upon the conclusion of the the tour, getting back up requires more 20 foot ladders to access the path to the parking lot. This was a really neat experience!
It was time now to head to Cliff Palace. This site is the largest known cliff dwelling in all of North America, containing over 150 rooms, 23 kivas, and housed approximately 100 people. Like all of the other cliff dwellings in the park, this one dates back to the 1200-1300s and was abandoned, like the rest not long afterward. Many National Parks have their “main draw” and this is it for Mesa Verde. There are many tours each day during season, and they are fairly large. Again, you have to secure a reservation ahead of time. Getting down to the dwelling is pretty pedestrian but does require some downhill hiking. Getting back out however is much more difficult and requires some ladders and hand holds to ascend up the cliffs topside.
This was my last first hand experience with the cliff dwellings. To review, there are over 6 HUNDRED of these sites in Mesa Verde. They were all built in the 12-1300s and were abandoned for unknown reasons pretty soon after they were built. However, the cliff dwellings are only a small part of the history of the ancestral Puebloans and this land! Especially on the Chapin Mesa, you will come across MANY mesa top excavation sites. These pit houses date back much further than the cliff dwellings, many as far back as 600 CE. The interesting part about these sites is that they were often reused, some times many times over, as if the people had a recorded history of the sites. The sites were even buried between habitations. Even during the times of the cliff houses, people were still living on the mesa tops. In fact, if I recall correctly it is not even entirely known whether people actually “lived” in the cliff dwellings or not. The national park service is aware of thousands of these sites, but most of them have been left filled in and covered as that actually protects the sites. Very interesting!
In addition to the pit houses, the unique Sun Temple sits atop the Mesa Top Loop directly across from the Cliff Palace. This site is vastly different from any other site in the park, and indeed the entire Puebloan community. It was constructed in a D shape, and perhaps never finished. It has no evidence of any roof, or habitation, is aligned with the cardinal directions, and as the name suggests, may have been an observatory or involved in tracking the seasons.
The Far View area, where the lodge is, contains some really neat ruins as well. This area was one of the most heavily populated areas in the mesa between 900 and 1300 CE. Hundreds lived here, in dozens of villages in the small area. Interestingly, people continued living here while the cliff dwellings were occupied. Of I stopped in and hiked around. The weather quickly turned poor and I got caught in a hailstorm and had to run back to my vehicle and hunker down for a bit! Once the hail subsided I finished exploring this interesting area. There are many structure ruins and even whats left of an ancient reservoir, although there seems to be some disagreement on the actual purpose of the reservoir, including if it even WAS a reservoir at all. Some research lends support that the site would not have functioned well, if at all, as a water reservoir and it might have been used for rituals.
As you get closer to the park entrance you will find the highest point of the park, Park Point Overlook, at about 8500 feet elevation. My last afternoon I found myself up there, but the weather was a fright. The temps were upper 30s and rainy which turned into ice. There is an old fire tower up there that seemed abandoned to me, but may still be used at times. I did return the next day for better weather. Between this area and the park entrance you will find the park campground. There are many trails in this area if you are interested (I wasn’t). I stopped at the visitor center once more to get a morning view and that finished national park 43!
Overall Impressions: Mesa Verde National Park is amazing, and high up on my list of favorite National Parks, maybe top 3 or 4! You should definitely go, it’s important. Do it!
The Adventurer’s Rating: 5 Arrowheads!
The Parks Adventurer 
Well documented. Thank you and I agree that it is a wonderful Park.
LikeLike