Xsplorin

View toward Cortez from atop Mesa Verde

Oct. 4, 2017

Two days ago we went into Mesa Verde. We first admired the Visitors Center just off CO-160. Nice exhibits: some dioramas and a topographical scale model that shows the river, roads and various fires. It’s also the only place to buy tickets (at only $5 per person) for the Ranger guided tours. We bought two tickets for the Long House Tour at 2:00PM the next day (first slots available).

Outside the Visitor’s Center is an interesting bronze scuplture of a lean, muscled man in a loincloth with a bulging woven basket on his back scaling the arc of some long-ago cliff face. The Anasazi, ancestors of the Navajo, carried in everything: harvest, game, water, firewood and building materials this way. Where nature hadn’t provided they hammered shallow hand and toe holds in the rock faces.

We drove the twisting-turning switchback road up to aptly-named Far View in the Smart ForTwo. It’s eleven thrilling miles in from the gate (felt like five by air). We didn’t enter the Lodge or Meeting Center there, but did have lunch in the seemingly oversized restaurant. It must be much busier in high season. We split an order of tacos – one each and a bag of Frito’s – that’s some healthy eating. There was no iced tea. M had a root beer and I had a local beer. Beer was okay. M had forgotten the cloyingly sweetness of root beer. Tacos were tasty and just enough.

The mesa wasn’t all that verde this time of year; the first days of October. The greens were sage, dull forest and lime overwhelmed with yellows, gold and rust (herrumbre in Spanish). Under a flawless cobalt vault, every slope seemed to be dressed in glistening puffs of those colors. As the sky dropped to the horizon it would lighten until it was a cool white tint fading behind the hard, jagged edge of the soft blue of the most distant range. As you looked down into the valley, closer to your tired feet, you see more mountain ranges, and nearby burn-scarred ridges.

Once you are past the few buildings of Far View you either go left to the Fire Tower Point and Petroglyph Trail on Chapin Mesa or right to Weatherhill Mesa and the Long House tour. Either terminus is about ninety minutes from the Visitors Center and reached along one of the two rippling ridges that form the top of the mesa. The drive to the Petroglyph Trail was undulating and sinuous. 

Maureen looking across a canyon atop Mesa Verde

A fallen trunk twisted by its life in the unrelenting wind

The residue of water seeps are called ‘desert varnish’

I didn’t take any photos of the petroglyphs. Better pictures and more intelligent descriptions are shown many places on line. Here is one link. We started the trail by ourselves and came across a solitary hiker. He was a fine gentlemen and we had each other’s company the remainder of the hike. It was a lot of up and down, much careful picking of footsteps. At one photo point, we were overtaking by a German couple. American, our companion spoke an old German dialect he had learned from his grandmother. It was a fun, interesting moment. Just before departing we learned he was a retired United Methodist Minister.  Here’s a photo of him taking a momentary rest. They stayed a few days in the Lodge and he took these jaunts to maintain his health after a more sedentary life had led him to serious surgery.