Westward Bound Day 21 3rd day@ Mesa Verde National Park May 25

Note: Posting of this blog makes me officially 12 days behind in posting. We are now in Munds Park, AZ and about to pull up stakes and head to Phoenix. We had an unfortunate mishap and lost my Verizon Jetpak about a week ago. This is making my access to internet even dicier than before. Hopefully, we can catch up some by the time we reach San Antonio. That will be the first park that offers WI-FI. We have had access here, at Jack and Shirlee's, but have stayed so busy that not much time for posting has been available. I have a feeling the same will happen tonight when we stay with them in their home in Phoenix. Oh well.....here is what happened on our last day at Mesa Verde (May 25).

On our last day at Mesa Verde, we opted to go see the cliff dwelling called Long House, that is located on the Wetherill Mesa in the western portion of the park. You reach it by driving as a 12 mile steep, winding road that follows a historic fire trail. Yep, we saw lots of dead trees. Along the route is a series of turnouts and overlooks. At the end of the road you load onto trams to ride out to the dwelling. This part of the park is only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

The vista from the tram parking lot. Note the burnt out forest. Lots of fires up here, over 50% has burned over the past couple of decades due to lighting strikes. Rain rarely hits the ground during the storms but the lightning sure does.

Here is Richard at the beginning of our tour. Our tour guide was so good!

The view as we approached Long House, the second largest cliff dwelling in the park. The 90 minute, ranger guided tour involves 50 concrete steps and climbing two 15 foot ladders within the site. The round trip hike is 3/4 iles and a 130 foot gain in elevation upon exiting. Yes, we were huffing and puffing and swigging logs of water to overcome the effects of the altitude (7000 ft elevation) and the heat. But it was worth it! 

It is amazing that we are allowed to stroll through this historic site. Constant cautions not to touch the walls.

This is called a seepage spring. There are streams that pop up like the that the early settlers used for their water source. The water that comes out is from rain that fell on the mesa above here many, many years before. Amazing.

While hard to see, this is actual artwork that was done by the Ancient Puebloans more than 700 years ago.

This was one of the Kivas, that was used for spirtual ceremonies as well as a community gathering space for weaving.

This tour was awesome - definitely a memory maker!

Yes, we had to climb these 15' ladders just like the Ancient Puebloans did!

 

We foun this yucca plant in bloom near one of the  early settlements.

 

There weren't a lot of flowering plants on the mesa and of those we saw, they were few and far between.

I think that made them all the more beautiful.

It was nice to observe a greener view on the mesa - part of the 50% that has not burned.

One of the breath-taking views as we drove back to our campsite.

Well, we found out just how long our battery will last without being plugged into electricity. Despite all the precautions we took to NOT use the battery powered electric, we lost power on the third afternoon. So before we could prepare the camper to leave the next morning. Richard had to jump us off in order to pull in the slides and use all our fancy gadgets  that are remote controlled. 

One last beautiful view from our campsite, as we headed out for our trip up to Page,  AZ, where we home-based for trips to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Bryce Canyon National Park. What a gorgeous morning!