Mesa Verde Nat'l Park

We arrived in Cortez, Colorado yesterday, Satruday April 24th. We're staying at the Cortez KOA campgrounds. We got up early this morning and headed to Mesa Verde National Park, which is only a few miles down the road from where we're staying. The backdrop and views from our campground are phenominal as well. We can also see the Rocky Mountains, still snow-capped as well.

Mesa Verde National Park was a wonderful experience. We saw lot's of wildlife, deer, countless birds and surprisingly, a herd of wild horses. They're apparently all quite used to humans as none of them run off when they see you. We have several pictures of the wild mustangs and deer included in our slide of the Park, on the blog for you to check out.

Now, as for a few details about Mesa Verde National Park. The park is considered America's premier archaeological wonder. National Geographic Traveler even named Mesa Verde as one of the top 50 things in the world that one "must see" in a lifetime.

The beauty and complexity of the homes and villages speak eloquently of the ancient peoples who built them. Walk into any of these spectacular cliff dwellings and hear the wind whispering through the shadowed rooms. The walls radiate noise and you can hear distant voices from other areas of the ruins. I don't think anyone visiting the park could not come away untouched by the experience.

Until recently, these ancient people were called Anasazi. Today, they're referred to as Ancestral Puebloans, forefathers of the people who now live along the Rio Grande River and the high mesas in New Mexico and Arizona. The Park comprises 52,000acres of amazing canyons, and home to falcons, eagles, deer, coyotes, bobcats, bear, mountain lions and wild stallions.

As for our journey today, in order to actually enter any of these cliff dwellings, you must join one of the National Park ranger led tours. We initially decided to go to both the "Cliff Dwelling Palace" and "Balcony House". After checking out the surrounding areas and Pitt-rooms some 2,000+ years old, we arrived for our Cliff Dwelling ranger-led tour. Wow! What an experience.

The Park Rangers indicated the tours were 'somewhat strenuous'...especially since we were at 7,000+ feet above sea level. Whew! For awhile there, I thought I may end up spending the night there, it was sooooo difficult getting out! Initially, you work your way down several levels of stairs, all uneven and hand-made. I thought, sheesh--piece of cake, getting down. I got this thing covered! Well, uhhhh...that was until the End of the tour and we had to CLIMB out.

The ranger led tour was wonderfully help, quite interesting and we really thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I had no idea just how difficult it would be climbing out of that sucker. We had to climb up 4-5 sets of wooden ladders and additional stone stairs for a total of probably 10+ flights of stairs, to get out. The steps between were quite high as well. Throw in the fact that we were at 7,000+ feet elevation, and it's a wonder I ever got out of there.

Of course, Mark patiently walked behind me...not even appearing winded--at all! I on the other hand, was Gasping for air. I had to stop several times on the way out to try and suck in a little air. I actually thought I might have a heart attack before I got out of there. Whew! That's without a doubt the most strenous thing I've done in 10+ years. Really.

We had tickets for a follow up tour of "Balcony House". However, we were informed it was much more strenuous than the Cliff Dwelling Palace. So did we go to the second tour? Uhhhhhh....hmmmmmm, let me think a minute here--Not!! At that point, it was after 3:00 and I was exhausted, very tired and hungry. So we called it a day and left. We stopped for a bite to eat and then came back 'home' to our RV and I crashed on the bed with our babies for a few hours of rest.

Overall--we had a wonderful time at Mesa Verde National Park. We're really glad we did it--another item crossed off our "bucket list"! Tomorrow, we're planning on driving an hour from our current location in Cortez, to Durango and riding the Durango Silverton train. It's an entire day trip up there and back with lunch included.

We should have more updates tomorrow or the next day. Be sure and click on the Mesa Verde Nat'l Park link on the left side of the blog to look at all the pictures we took. **Oh yea, BE sure and check out the picture of someone's "rear-end"!! That unfortunate individual is me. Yep, Mark had the audacity to take a picture of me trying to climb up one of the many ladders getting out. I told him I couldn't believe he did that--that was down right cruel...so I decided to include it so you could see for yourself! Suffice to say it's a terrible picture--but my wonderful husband took it. (See what I have to put up with...??)

Well that's a wrap for today. We hope you had a wonderful day today--we certainly did!!~