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2015 Bucket List Road Trip

Day 2: Mesa Verde National Park

By Ashleigh Cropper

September 11^th, 2015

Mesa Verde National Park

I actually had never been to a national park, except for Crater Lake growing up, but I feel like that hardly counts when you live right next to it. Exploring the states around me was also a lacking adventure, until I got married. I know national parks get a great deal of recognition and tourists from all over the world, but every time I go, I can’t help but find myself surrounded by foreigners. I kind of feel as though we travel to big cities, will camp near our homes, but leave the national parks for another time. Or at least, that was part of my upbringing. The United States have so much to offer when it comes to natural beauty and awesome places to explore. I told my husband that I would not move to Utah unless he got me a national park’s pass and promised to see all the parks in Utah with me (side note, I was TOTALLY dead serious about that!) Lucky for me, and him, we hit up all the parks and that started my obsession.

So lets be real here, every national park is on my list. We have hit up some awesome parks. I will have to share some of my favorites though. Come on, everyone has favorites! Mesa Verde National Park was one of the more cultural parks I have visited. We traveled down from Garden of the Gods, stopped in Pueblo to do a little family history research, and continued down the road. A quick stop in Pagosa Springs to see the hype of the natural spring pools (they looked fun but they are connected to a resort like place and cost SO much for a few hours), and then continued into Durango. Durango is only about 30 minutes from the entrance of Mesa Verde. If I may say, Durango is awesome! Such a cool downtown, lots of restaurants and a really fun, local vibe. Plus when you are driving into Durango, you drop into this AMMMMAZING valley, which is whats below.

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So lets talk some more about Mesa Verde. Once you drive into the park entrance you think, “we made it in no time!” HA! Don’t be fooled. It is a LONNNNG drive on to the plateau to see the cliff dwellings. I think it took us about 45-1 hour to get to the area where you can actually explore. You drive up and up, and up and come to the first view below. There are a few dwellings you can visit and walk to on your own. And then there are the big boys! You can’t reach those by any other means than a huge ladder and a guided tour. Side note, during high tourist season is when those tours start and we were here in March, which was not high tourist season.

Let’s take a good look at that picture on the right and compare it to the picture on the left. How did they do it?! I read that there are over 180 cliff dwellings all around this park. And here is the mind blowing part, the men especially, would leave the dwellings go hunting, searching etc…sometimes every day and would come back to the dwellings. Do you SEE that terrain?! Let me just go for a quick jaunt into the canyons and find us some food and I will come strolling back in this evening! Ha! Talk about a work out every. single. day. As you scroll down you will see the dwellings are in some seriously remote, difficult spots. And I just love how you can see the trees right on top of the one dwelling on the right. Talk about a smart set-up!

Once you walk down into the canyon, you realize that getting back up won’t be so easy…but totally worth it. The dwellings range in size and I can’t recall how many rooms this one had but I know the largest one has about 150 rooms. This one seemed medium sized with quite a few rooms. We were able to go down into the kiva (the ritual area underneath the dwelling) and look around as well. I am incredibly impressed by the architecture and buildings. Everything was intricately woven together inside of the dwelling. And with such little space, it had to be.

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I HIGHLY recommend a drive around the top of the mesa. There are places to stop and see where they were farming and had little huts on top of the mesa as well. But the highlight of the drive is searching for other dwellings. Some are on the park map and others you can just see from a distance. There was one in particular (sorry too far away to really get a good shot) that was in the middle of a sleek, straight down, cliff. Now someone explain to me how you get to that?!

Mesa Verde National Park was on our bucket list. And overall I would say, visit once, see the dwellings, talk to the rangers (they have lots of really interesting facts to share), drive around the mesa, and then check it off. It is incredible to learn about the culture and lifestyle of the cliff dwellers who eventually ended up in Arizona and New Mexico.