We spent the last day at Mesa Verde relaxing in the morning at Morefield Campground and then heading up to Farview Mesa to visit Balcony House and for a twilight tour of Cliff House. I was a little dubious about the twilight tour which was billed as meeting some of the historic people from Mesa Verde, but it turned out to be a highlight of our time. We first started at Balcony House, which is reached by climbing this ladder. Balcony House is unusual for several reasons. It has several balconies (see the photo below) and it has a wall at its edge (see the photo below the balcony photo). The brown matter between the layers of clay in the balcony is made from the bark of the juniper tree. These balconies
are original and you have to crawl through three tunnels and climb several ladders to get there. No one knows why there is a wall either.
We then drove around the Mesa Top Road stopping to look at numerous ruins. This one, Tower House, has the tallest structure in Mesa Verde (four stories). It was being stabilized (which hadn't been done since the 1960's).
Eventually we came to an overlook of Cliff House at the juncture of two canyons. Visible from the point were twelve different cliff dwellings and the Sun Palace (a structure built at the very end of the occupation of Mesa Verde and never completed). It was extremely regular, in the shape of a D and had rocks that had pecked markings on them. This was the Fire House ruin and you can see the toe and finger holds between the two upper structures. We then went to the Archaeological Museum and by chance heard that the cafeteria at Cliff House was closed, so dashed back to Far View for dinner before our twilight tour.
Our ranger, Tom Wolf, had been visiting Mesa Verde since the mid-fifties. He was an engineer whose father became the head of the Bureau of Reclamation and oversaw the construction of Glen Canyon Dam. In his family were two female archaeologists, one of whom became the head archaeologists at Mesa Verde. He gave a fascinating tour focusing on water and engineering. When water was brought to Mesa Verde (to increase tourism), it increased the water that soaked through the sandstone into Cliff House. Half of Cliff House is built on bedrock and the other half is on fill. In this photo you can see a large rock with three cracks and a hole in the upper left. It cracked in the 1920's as a result of increased water pressure underneath it and the NPS cut the hole to relieve the pressure. At the time the NPS was not using engineers to stabilize the foundations of the structures. In this picture, the round tower sits on the last of the bedrock. To its right, all the structures are built on fill. There are multiple kivas in Cliff House, which were perfectly round. Each kiva was built by one of the clans (the Ancestral Puebloans were a matriarchy). They are becoming deformed due to the super saturation of the fill from water introduced by the NPS. They are now trying to correct the problem. He told a very moving story
about following a young guide on a tour of Cliff House and she wasn't moving her group through fast enough. He was about to go to her and ask her to hurry up when her group began to sing. Cliff House has wonderful acoustics and they sang for 10 minutes. It turns out they were Hopis and were singing a healing song for the kivas and their repair. The NPS is now very conscious of its relationship with the tribes and will repair the structures with their involvement He also argued that Cliff Palace and Balcony House were built as fortifications.
His two aunts disagreed over the usage of a round structure on the top of Mesa Verde. One of them thought it was a reservoir and the other thought it was a dance surface. For decades they never got permission to study the 90' round depression. Finally in the 21st century it was studied and conclusively proven that it was a reservoir. This tour of 16 people in the twilight was magical; fascinating information, a wonderful presenter and a solitary visit to Cliff Palace.
The next morning early we took off for Ouray. We had been debating going through Telluride, but the Film Festival is this weekend and it is packed with folks. So we took off on the Million Dollar Highway. It showed evidence of numerous mud slides from the monsoon rain Sunday evening. There were big dozers and dump trucks that had cleared the road. It began to rain as we went up Red Mountain pass out of Silverton. We lucked out and saw the steam train leaving in Silverton. We arrived in Ouray where it was raining, set up Snoopy and hunkered down until it stopped. Last night we saw a movie on the San Juan Mountains narrated by C.W. McCall (of "Convoy" fame).
We spent the last day at Mesa Verde relaxing in the morning at Morefield Campground and then heading up to Farview Mesa to visit Balcony House and for a twilight tour of Cliff House. I was a little dubious about the twilight tour which was billed as meeting some of the historic people from Mesa Verde, but it turned out to be a highlight of our time. We first started at Balcony House, which is reached by climbing this ladder. Balcony House is unusual for several reasons. It has several balconies (see the photo below) and it has a wall at its edge (see the photo below the balcony photo). The brown matter between the layers of clay in the balcony is made from the bark of the juniper tree. These balconies 
are original and you have to crawl through three tunnels and climb several ladders to get there. No one knows why there is a wall either.
We then drove around the Mesa Top Road stopping to look at numerous ruins. This one, Tower House, has the tallest structure in Mesa Verde (four stories). It was being stabilized (which hadn't been done since the 1960's). 
Eventually we came to an overlook of Cliff House at the juncture of two canyons. Visible from the point were twelve different cliff dwellings and the Sun Palace (a structure built at the very end of the occupation of Mesa Verde and never completed). It was extremely regular, in the shape of a D and had rocks that had pecked markings on them. This was the Fire House ruin and you can see the toe and finger holds between the two upper structures. We then went to the Archaeological Museum and by chance heard that the cafeteria at Cliff House was closed, so dashed back to Far View for dinner before our twilight tour.
Our ranger, Tom Wolf, had been visiting Mesa Verde since the mid-fifties. He was an engineer whose father became the head of the Bureau of Reclamation and oversaw the construction of Glen Canyon Dam. In his family were two female archaeologists, one of whom became the head archaeologists at Mesa Verde. He gave a fascinating tour focusing on water and engineering. When water was brought to Mesa Verde (to increase tourism), it increased the water that soaked through the sandstone into Cliff House. Half of Cliff House is built on bedrock and the other half is on fill. In this photo you can see a large rock with three cracks and a hole in the upper left. It cracked in the 1920's as a result of increased water pressure underneath it and the NPS cut the hole to relieve the pressure. At the time the NPS was not using engineers to stabilize the foundations of the structures. In this picture, the round tower sits on the last of the bedrock. To its right, all the structures are built on fill. There are multiple kivas in Cliff House, which were perfectly round. Each kiva was built by one of the clans (the Ancestral Puebloans were a matriarchy). They are becoming deformed due to the super saturation of the fill from water introduced by the NPS. They are now trying to correct the problem. He told a very moving story
about following a young guide on a tour of Cliff House and she wasn't moving her group through fast enough. He was about to go to her and ask her to hurry up when her group began to sing. Cliff House has wonderful acoustics and they sang for 10 minutes. It turns out they were Hopis and were singing a healing song for the kivas and their repair. The NPS is now very conscious of its relationship with the tribes and will repair the structures with their involvement He also argued that Cliff Palace and Balcony House were built as fortifications.
His two aunts disagreed over the usage of a round structure on the top of Mesa Verde. One of them thought it was a reservoir and the other thought it was a dance surface. For decades they never got permission to study the 90' round depression. Finally in the 21st century it was studied and conclusively proven that it was a reservoir. This tour of 16 people in the twilight was magical; fascinating information, a wonderful presenter and a solitary visit to Cliff Palace. 
The next morning early we took off for Ouray. We had been debating going through Telluride, but the Film Festival is this weekend and it is packed with folks. So we took off on the Million Dollar Highway. It showed evidence of numerous mud slides from the monsoon rain Sunday evening. There were big dozers and dump trucks that had cleared the road. It began to rain as we went up Red Mountain pass out of Silverton. We lucked out and saw the steam train leaving in Silverton. We arrived in Ouray where it was raining, set up Snoopy and hunkered down until it stopped. Last night we saw a movie on the San Juan Mountains narrated by C.W. McCall (of "Convoy" fame).
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