Mesa Verde

We had reservations at Mesa Verde's campground, Morefield Campground, for one night but lucked out and got it for two. It was a full hook up and a lovely site. It was surrounded by vegetation such that you didn't see anyone else although they were not very far away. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of it. Both nights we attended the ranger's 9:00 p.m. talk.

The first morning I signed up for a bus tour right from the campground. It was $25 and supposed to last 5 hours. It turns out we only had 3 on the tour so instead it lasted for 7 hours and included the museum. I really lucked out as it was a wonderful tour.

First we stopped at the Far View sites. There are a number of villages and an ancient reservoir that you can tour by walking a one mile loop. Our guide was excellent and brought along alot of visual aids in addition to telling us about what we were seeing. She pointed out the fire wind blocks, the vent shafts and tunnels that connected the kivas. In addition she pointed out plants along the way and explained what people made from them and how they used them. She also covered the general history of occupation and development of the area. It was very illuminating to learn so many details about how people lived in this region.





Next we went to the Spruce Tree House for a guided tour. Everywhere we went people would stop and ask her questions. We were very lucky to be with someone so knowledgeable as we were never left wondering about anything we saw and she pointed out some things that we would have missed.

This is the water seep spring at Spruce Tree House.



I got to climb down into the kiva that was open to the public.

These stones were used for grinding corn.

After the Spruce Tree House tour we went through the museum and then stopped for a picnic lunch that was included in the tour. Then we drove around the loop and saw many other sites from the scenic overlooks.


The next day we drove our RV around and saw some of the sites not included on the tour. The roads were good and it was pretty easy to do with an RV as there were pull offs with plenty of room to park. One road out to some major sites doesn't allow anything over 22 ft so we could not do that portion of the park.

This is a pit house.







The cliff houses were only used for 80 years and one can see why. They are way to difficult to access. Probably after they built them they wondered what they were thinking and moved out to go south where they could live on a river. The Far View sites that we first toured on the flat land were used for farming and were occupied for hundreds of years. It is thought that an extended drought (25+ years) may have pushed people into the cliff dwellings near the seep springs.