Richard Wetherill and Charles Mason stumbled across some magnificent cliff dwellings while searching for stray cattle on Wetherill’s southwestern Colorado ranch. These ruins were once the home of the Anasazi constructed some time in the early 13th century and abandoned during a severe and prolonged drought starting around 1275. The Anasazi disappeared as a people but their dwellings remain as Mesa Verde National Park, created in 1906.
Terry and I took the kids to see Mesa Verde while on our 1993. While we spent only a day enjoying the views and didn’t take a guided tour of the dwellings themselves, I have to say that it is an impressive place. As you stand on the rim of the canyon opposite the Cliff Palace and look down upon this city made of adobe tucked into the cliff overhangs, the scale slowly creeps upon you and you are awed by the Anasazi’s accomplishments. Then you begin to wonder just how bad things must have gotten for them to abandon this place after only a few generations and eventually disappear from history altogether.
This is definitely one of the places I would like to visit again. 2006 will be the centennial year for this park and I'm sure they will have all kinds of special events planned. (Unfortunately, this wil have to be a year of limited travel for Terry and I as we will be constructing our own "cliff dwelling" in PA.)
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