We met up with Joe and Vera Wiatt as planned in the Morefield Campground within Mesa Verde. We got up Monday morning and decided to explore Weatherill Mesa. It was opened in 1972, after I had worked here in 1970. When Bob and I came to Mesa Verde six years ago we didn't go out here either. It is much less visited than Far View Mesa. Once you get there, there is a biofuel tram that takes you around. We first visited Step House, visible here on the left. It is distinguished by the fact that there are two different sites within the cave; a Modified Basketmaker site (626) and an Ancient Puebloan site (1226). The Basketmaker site has pit houses and the Ancient Puebloan site has the masonry construction. 
Here you can see a petroglyph rock and the amazing masonry of the Ancient Puebloans who had to build on very uneven surfaces. Approximately 30-40 people lived in this pueblo. 
After eating our picnic lunch we took a guided tour with Ranger Wendy of Long House, the second-largest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde. It is known for a very large, square, dance area in the center and is thought to be a center for surrounding pueblos. 
Here you can see three types of construction in an area for storage which is above Long House. There is the masonry (made out of blocks of sandstone about the size of a loaf of bread), dry laid rocks (used when water was scarce and the Ancient Puebloans did not want to waste it to make mortar) and mud and daub (the construction type used on the top of the mesa).
One of the wonderful things about Long House is that we were alone in it; a great contrast to the more popular ciff dwellings on Far View Mesa.
One of the unusual things about Long House is that it had seep springs in the back of the cave. Seep springs develop when a sandstone layer (porous) meets a nonporous layer (shale). Due to the torrential rain we had Sunday night, there was lots of water, including water falling from the mesa top down over the edge. The Ancient Puebloans dug tiny water collection pools in the rock and used ladles to get the water out. Here you can also see lots of metates and manos to grind corn.
Long House has a large number of kivas. Kivas had six pilasters to support the roof (representing the four cardinal directions, earth and heaven), a ventilation shaft (seen behind the deflector in the wall), a deflector to keep the air from blowing onto the fire, a sipapu (the little hole in the floor) which represents a spiritual connection to the earth, niches in the wall and seats. The roof would have been made of wood and covered with dirt and clay. In the winter the kivas were warm; in the summer cool.
In the dance court there are four unusual formations like this. They were for drums played during dances. Wood or hides were stretched across the rock walls and feet were used to beat out the rhythm.
After we toured Long House we rode the tram around. Here is an overlook onto Kodak House (so named because a Swedish archaeologist stored his camera and film in a room in this ruin). Weatherill Mesa is named after the Weatherill family who farmed in the valley near Mancos and were early explorers of the sites. They were Quakers and felt that they had a duty to protect the artifacts and the area, though they served as guides to many groups who came in and took artifacts. We listened to a ranger presentation (supposedly on the stars but it was too cloudy). He answered questions. Some interesting tidbits: there have been a lot of fires in Mesa Verde, particularly on Weatherill Mesa and attempts to reseed the area fail. It takes 75-100 years for the junipers and Pinon Pines to regrow. The relationship between the park and Puebloans is good since the NPS has stopped digging up graves (though there are very few remains found here). Few Puebloans visit Mesa Verde because they feel it is full of spirits.
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