Mesa Verde part One (Plus a quick Arches tour and the MTC too)

Durango, Colorado

We arrived at our house in Durango late on Thursday night. We had left Ogden early that morning but made a stop first in Provo to tour the new additions to the Missionary Training Center there. Four of our missionaries have started out their missions there, but the rest of us had never been inside, so that was fun. Plus we got to humiliate our children by asking them to pose in front of the giant map of the world and point at their siblings' missions.The MTC stop was planned but then we decided to also detour through Arches National Park, which somehow we had neglected in our national parks itinerary, even though we were going to drive right by it! So we took two hours to drive through it. And took one short hike up to Landscape Arch even though it was much too hot to be out in the desert. When we got to our house we were tired and hungry and maybe a tad grumpy and were very grateful to discover that the owners of the home had stocked the kitchen with a few food and drink items for us. Yay, for quesadillas and fresh pineapple for dinner at 9 pm! Then Friday we headed to Mesa Verde!

Arches National Park

We didn't get off too early after our late night, and we had to first fill up with gas and buy ourselves some food for lunch, but we managed to get to the visitors center near the park entrance by 10 where we lined up with everyone else to get tickets to the guided tours that are the only way to see some of the most popular attractions in the park. Then, tickets in hand to see all 3 ticketed tours over the next two days, we headed to the park entrance, where we learned that no, the parks do not keep a list of who has a parks pass and who doesn't, and if you leave yours at home you are out of luck. About an hour later, we were back at the same entrance, this time with our parks pass in hand and now ready to get started for reals.

We started with the Mesa Top Loop, stopping at every single stop around the loop to get out, read signs, take pictures, and generally gape at the ruins all around us. Next was lunch and then our first ticketed tour, the Cliff Palace tour. It was raining pretty good by now, but after our afternoon in Arches, it only felt good. The Cliff Palace Tour took us down up close to Cliff Palace and the ranger guide was full of information about what is known and what is surmised about the primitive pueblo people. We stood around and looked into a kiva, stuck our heads in through the window/door of one dwelling where we could see the paintings high up on the walls above us and then we climbed out of the dwelling by way of a ladder where the original inhabitants would have climbed right up the cliff using only little hand and footholds carved into the rock.

Cliff Palace

After our tour we were ready to be off on our own a little and to see some petroglyphs too. Pictograph Point trail (which is apparently misnamed because there are no pictographs only petroglyphs which are different) starts at the Chapin Mesa museum and they close and lock the entrance gate at 6. We were beginning the trail at 4:45 and they told us it would take us two hours to walk the two mile loop trail. We had to sign in and tell them which car in the parking lot was ours and how many of us there were. The trail was a huge adventure, we squeezed through narrow passages between rocks, ducked under cliff overhangs and climbed up and down iffy rock staircases, but at the far end we were met with a rock wall full of petroglyphs! And our handy guidebook we had borrowed at the trail head included a partial translation. My favorite was probably the "whipping kachinas" who "straightened out the people," though I also appreciated the "all-powerful animal spirit" who watched over the people in their travels.

Petroglyph Point

 The mile back to the museum was mostly along the top of the canyon with great views and our company along the trail was a flock of creepy vultures that the park keeps around to hurry people along the trail. By the time we returned to the museum, they were closed and so we never actually signed out, I guess they figure that if the car you claimed as yours is no longer in the parking lot, you made it out, but as far as they know our car was stolen and the vultures got us.

On our drive out we stopped at Far View sites, which we had intended to see on our way in, but missed the sign. These are ruins from when the people were building on the cliff tops instead of right into the cliffs, there are lots of these ruins within the park, in fact we had seen some already on our drive around the Mesa Top Loop, but these were more complex. All of the cliff top dwellings predate the cliff-side dwellings.

By the time we got back to the house it was another late night and we needed gas and groceries again.