Colorado/Utah Trip Day 7: Mesa Verde National Park

*Today I’m jumping back to our Colorado/Utah trip! See Days 1-3 (Vail/Glenwood Springs) and Days 4-6 (Moab, Utah).*

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Continuing on! On Thursday we had to say goodbye to Moab. Boo. I really, really, REALLY loved the place we stayed in Moab, and honestly, everything about the Moab area.

We had to get moving fairly early, around 8:30 a.m., as it would be a long day today. We were driving almost 3 hours south(east) to Mesa Verde National Park, looping back into Colorado.

Mesa Verde National Park is a World Heritage Site and home to the incredible ancient cliff dwellings of the Ancestro Pueblo indigenous people. Basically, after about 600 years of living on top of and farming these large “mesas”, or elevated flat lands, in the 1100s the people began constructing dwellings nestled within the cliffs below. (Someone there had a good idea… I’m sure it was a LOT more comfortable to be hidden away out of the Colorado elements!)

Apparently it must not have been as great as they all thought though, for some reason, because they only lived there from approximately the 1190s until the mid 1200s. By the end of the 1200s almost everyone had moved out and migrated south.

The remains of these amazing cliff dwellings are still there today, however, and quite an incredible site to see.

When we arrived at the park, our first stop was the Visitor Center. The thing at Mesa Verde is that these cliff dwellings are scattered around, beneath the various cliffs. You can’t just walk up to them, either, due to crowd control and mostly I think to protect the ruins! To access them, you must sign up for timed group tours led by park rangers.

You can sign up in advance on the website, or at least you could back then. However, since we were driving from Moab, we had been a bit uncertain of our exact timing. Fortunately we were still able to sign up for the tours we wanted once we arrived at the Visitor Center. (I would not count on that, though!! Probably definitely best to book in advance in peak season.)

We checked out the exhibits before heading to our first tour. The park is BIG. Things are spread out and it takes time to get from one site to the next. I think it took almost 40 minutes to drive from the entrance/ visitor center to the first stop!

Balcony House tour:

We figured we’d have time for about 2 tours. First up, Balcony House.

We met up with our group and the park ranger, who was AMAZING. He is actually a descendant of the Ancestro Pueblo people!! He was extremely passionate about sharing the history of this land and he made the tour exceptional.

I don’t remember how long it all took, but we had to hike a little bit to get to the dwellings.

We had definitely wanted to do this tour because it looked like it had some “adventures” that the boys would love, too- climbing ladders to get in and crawling through spaces!

Here are the boys heading up the first ladder:

We followed our guide into the main area of the Balcony House dwelling.

Here you can see how they literally built structures right into the rock.

This shot shows how the cliff provided natural protection from the sun, rain and wind:

After we explored, the guide called everyone together while he shared stories and history about Mesa Verde. I will never forget the next part. He called us all down to the ledge below, looking out over the vast land. He told us to all take a moment of silence to connect with the land and the spirits of those who lived there before, to be at one with the earth and its natural beauty as they were. As we stood there in silence, with just the sound of the breeze in the trees, I remember a big hawk soaring down in front of us through the valley. This was one of those incredible special travel memories for me. 💗

We had some more time to explore:

Including crawling into a couple of the “rooms”! This was great fun.

After this tour, we drove over to our next one, which was at 3:30 p.m. I think we had enough time to stop off at a little cafe/shop in the park for snacks + waters.

On to Cliff Palace:

We met up with our new group and park ranger and headed down the trail. It was HOT, being mid-August and all, but we managed okay.

Isn’t this a cool shot? Little village below the cliff.

The boys right up front with the park ranger. 🙂

This tour was similar overall, but each dwelling is unique. I don’t have any strong memories as with the first tour, but that first ranger and his personal connection to the history were hard to top!

Here you can see a close up. The ranger described the different uses of each area. Everything was strategically built and well thought out. Just incredible how they did all of this.

Did I mention it was hot? 😆

After more exploring, the grand finale: a great big ladder out! haha. Here’s my dad spotting my mom as she climbs up! 😉

That was it for our tours.

Before concluding our time at Mesa Verde, we did stop off, I think- my memory a wee bit fuzzy here- at the Spruce Tree House (shown below). This is one of the coolest and maybe best preserved dwellings, I think, but I’m pretty sure it was closed when we were there. If I recall, they were either doing some restoration work or there had been some sort of fallen rock situation? Don’t quote me on that. Anyway, I don’t think people were allowed in (not sure if they are again today; I know it at least used to be open in the past).

We just parked and followed part of a short trail to a viewing spot, but it was hot and we were tired and didn’t go any closer.

We loaded back into the vans and headed out! It was late afternoon by this point; the time stamp on my photo above of Spruce Tree House says 4:51 p.m.

We made our way toward the park exit, but like I said, it’s a BIG park. It took a while to even get out. I also wanted to stop, as we’d be driving right by, at one of the lookouts in the park.

This is Park Point North Overlook, a really beautiful spot that we ended up serendipitously hitting right at sort of a golden hour! The lighting was great.

This was maybe a 20-30 minute total stop. We walked the short path to a couple of lookout points:

The boys enjoyed the telescopes!

Cute one of my dad and Ethan. 🙂

I think there was another path, too, leading up to a wildfire lookout tower!

This was a really beautiful spot. So peaceful. Also, NO OTHER PEOPLE! Always a win in my book, as you all know. 😅

By the time we finished wandering around, it was already 6:30 p.m.! I had warned everyone in the morning that this would be a long day. 🙂

We still had to drive almost an hour to our next overnight destination, Durango, Colorado.

I don’t remember much about the drive. Except that I didn’t drive it. LOL. I think it was an easy drive, though I think maybe more hilly and mountainous as we neared Durango.

We stopped to check in at our hotel, which would be our home for the next 2 nights. During this trip we stayed at several places that were FANTASTIC. This place in Durango was more average, probably my least favorite lodging of the trip. I mean, it was fine. I mostly picked it for its great location, that it had a pool/ hot tub, and the fact that since we’d only have 2 nights here and there was a lot to see/do in the Durango area, we figured we wouldn’t even be there much. I think it was a Baymont Inn, maybe?

Anyway, we stopped off to check in and drop our things off, and then headed into town for a late DINNER! The time stamp on this dinner pic says 8:30 p.m.

We ate at Carver Brewing Company, in their outdoor covered garden space. Very cute place!

It was a long, hot day full of tons of physical activity and history, so why NOT have a ginormous dessert at 9:03 p.m.? #vacationmode #YOLO

After that, my photos end, so I’ll assume we headed back to the hotel and collapsed into bed!!

I loved this day and have some really distinct, fond memories of all of it, even 6 years later now. 🥰

Stay tuned for the next installment of Durango + Silverton, Colorado!