Mesa Verde National Park

I was able to get to the visitors center at Mesa Verde National Park about five minutes before it opened. There was already a line of people lined up to buy tickets for tours of one of the three sites that required reservations. I decided to buy just one, for Cliff Palace, the easiest of the three tours. I was worried that the heights of Balcony House, the most popular spot, would be too much for me. I kind of regret this decision, but that will give me something to do next time I visit this park. Cliff Palace is the biggest cliff dwelling, and the hike down to it was relatively easy. The tour was full, so there were lots of people. The range did a good job moving people along and explaining the history and culture of the people who lived there, but the tour was shorter than I had expected.



I did take the hike where there was as view of Balcony Palace across a canyon. Even though I had to zoom in to get this photo, you could hear the people as they climbed the ladders and made there way up to the dwelling. There were lots of cheers, I guess as someone made a difficult climb.

By this time, it was getting hot, and I left my cooler packed with water in the hotel room, so I ended up buying a few bottles of water.

For the rest of the day, I hiked to the ruins that were "self guided". The Step House was located on the far side of the park. It took almost one hour to drive there. However, the short but steep hike led to a small cliff dwelling where the only person there was a nice park ranger who took my photo. The previous site I walked to, Spruce Tree House, was very crowded, and I didn't get any good photos there.



My goal was to see all I could before the afternoon thundershowers started. I heard that some people yesterday got caught in a hail storm in the late afternoon. I saw the clouds forming over the mountains as I headed out. I snapped this photo from high in the mesa of the valley below. Mesa Verde sits between 7000 and 8000 feet above see level. Having spent the past two weeks between 5000 and 10,000 feet, I don't think the altitude really affected me. All the recent hiking I've done did slow me down a little, but tomorrow I'll take it easy. I don't have any real plans, other than stopping at Four Corners and perhaps Monument Valley.