Cuesta Verde

Cliff Palace

Okay, we learned a lot. Ready?

Number one, Mesa Verde isn’t exactly a mesa, which is a high flat land surrounded by steep cliffs on all sides. It’s more of a cuesta, which is a steep slope at the edge of a plain. Picture a gently rolling land of juniper, Gambel oak, and pinyon pine that slopes slightly down toward the south. Now split it up into fingers of land (tips towards the south) divided by steep canyons. The hundreds of cliff dwellings are along the canyon walls, between these finger-like mesas.


A typical canyon between the fingers of the mesas.

Number two, the horses here are wild and wandered into the park from the adjoining Ute reservation. Visitors have been feeding them. At every park we’ve visited, be it national or state or otherwise, we have been reminded not to feed the wildlife and told why we shouldn’t. I just don’t get how some people can ignore this.

Number three, there have been numerous fires in the park since 1989. All have been started by lightning and all have been a part of the natural course of things. However, because there are so many archeological sites it makes managing the fire more complicated. On the one hand, fires are good for clearing the overgrowth and spurring new growth. On the other, they can destroy precious historic sites. The Park Service works hard to protect the sites and minimize the chance of fire in the forests immediately surrounding the sites.


This kind of fire damage dominates the mesa tops of the park.

Never mind the numbering, here’s the rest. Previously nomadic people starting settling this area some 1400 years ago, around 600 A.D. They built pit houses on the mesa tops. These pit houses were usually dug about two feet into the ground and then built up with logs into a pyramid shape with the top third cut off. The top was flat with a central opening for climbing into the house and for smoke to escape. Gradually these practical structures became more elaborate and included religious significance as well.


A partial reconstruction of an early pit house.

This is a dry place, so the people who lived here must not have been able to live elsewhere, in places where living off of the land would have been easier. They did well though, farming mostly corn, beans and squash, and hunting game. Even as their construction methods and communities became more elaborate, they continued to live primarily on the mesa tops for 500 years.


Spruce Tree House nestled in its alcove

The first mystery is what caused the Ancestral Puebloans to move down into the natural alcoves along the cliff faces. The alcoves were formed when water percolating through the sandstone hit shale, which it could not penetrate. Instead it moved horizontally to an exit on the cliff — same thing happens in Zion National Park (and many other places). The seeping water undermined the sandstone cliff above causing slabs to fall and leaving nicely arching, deep overhangs.


Balcony House

They started building the cliff dwellings around 1100 A.D. These people still needed to farm the mesa tops, but now they had to climb up and down to get there. The cliff dwellings are made of cut sandstone blocks held together with a mud mortar. The alcoves aren’t very level and required a lot of back filling of material to make them so. In other words, it took a stunning amount of skillful work to build whole villages in the cliffs.

There is no direct evidence of war or violence that would have encouraged them to make these places for protection. Nobody really knows the answer. Feel free to make a guess yourself.


Looking into a kiva at Balcony House, the wood and mud plaster roof has long since eroded away.

Remember the pit houses I mentioned? Those became ceremonial rooms and are found in many of the cliff dwellings. They are called kivas and are deeper and more carefully made. Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. It has 23 kivas.


Inside a reconstructed kiva at Spruce Tree House. The fire pit would have been at the base of the ladder. The hole in the wall is a ventilation shaft to the surface, bringing in cool fresh air. The little wall in front would divert the fresh air around the room and provide oxygen for the fire (and people).

We toured three of the larger sites, including Cliff Palace, and saw many more from overlooks along the canyon rims. Cliff Palace originally had around 150 rooms. In most sites you cannot go in the rooms themselves, but you can walk through the courtyards in front and look down into the kivas, which have long since lost their roofs. Our favorite tour so far was our first, Balcony House. It isn’t one of the biggest, but it’s the most fun. You have to walk down several park built staircases and then climb a 32-foot ladder to get into the site. After walking through the site, you have to exit it by way of the original entrance — the only way into or out of the village when it was inhabited. This is a narrow tunnel over 12 feet long, 18 inches wide at its narrowest and 24 inches high. Elise had no problem, but for many people it was quite the squeeze.


A 32-foot ladder (left) and a tight squeeze (right)

The Ancestral Puebloans, having built all of these cool stone villages, left them forever in a matter of a couple generations. Archeologists can date the construction of the sites by examining the logs used for upper floors and ceilings. They can count the rings and estimate with good accuracy when various parts of each dwelling were built. Cliff Palace and Balcony House were begun around 1200 A.D. The last evidence of new construction was around 1280 A.D. After that nothing.


Square Tower House

It appears the mesa became too crowded and the last half of the thirteenth century was unusually dry (indicated by tree rings too). The people may have over hunted all of the big game. Without good water supplies and good food, it just doesn’t matter how nice your house is. It’s fascinating that the most captivating structures in the park — the reason this place is a park — were built and abandoned in a matter of 75-100 years.

Tomorrow we are exploring the less busy side of the park, Wetherill Mesa. There we will tour Long House and check out some other stuff too. My own theory for why they moved down into the cliffs: a ready supply of Coppertone could not be secured and they just needed to find some shade.