Mesa Verde

 3/3- Cortez CO

  We spent most of today at Mesa Verde National Park. True to form the National Park Service did a fine job presenting this amazing place. This is definitely off season and thus many opportunities were not available. In season you can go on a guided tour in which you can climb right into these structures. The upside to this is we almost had the place to ourselves. 

    Even before you reach the Pueblos the drive in is _____ (fill in the superlative). It a winding switchback road but at least this time it’s mostly wide enough. The view out over the valley is incredible. The best is yet to come as about ten miles into to this you take a short spur and climb to the highest part of the park at 8500 feet. There is a fire station up there to watch for fires. You can see four states and it seems as if you can see all of the four states. 

    Once you get on top of the mesa the drive levels out. We pulled over at the museum and started to walk the trail when I realized that one step off the side and I’d be 1000 feet down. These canyons are very sheer in the drop offs. We checked out a number of the sites but you can’t really get that close to the pueblos. Just the scenery looking down these canyons was astonishing. We drove and walked and I think we read every placard they had. We used this place up good. 

    The weather has decided to deteriorate a bit over the next couple of days with wind, snow and cold being featured. That and the fact that a lot of the attractions are not open or only partly open has us bee lining south again. 

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