A Spontaneous Visit to Mesa Verde National Park - Part Two - Hikes and Visits to Some of the Dwellings

My spontaneous visit to Mesa Verde turned into an eight hour visit which barely gave me an outline of what I could see and learn. I started by driving and seeing the long views.  Then I picked a few places to hike around and get long views of some of the dwellings.

The Ancestral Pueblo people began living on the mesa top at Mesa Verde during the 1000's. After about 600 years, around 1190, they moved into dwellings build on the sides of cliffs, climbing back up to the mesa top to farm. The houses we see today were built around 1200 and abandoned within the next 100 years.

 I planned to research each of the sites I visited and share them with you.  But with working up to 40 hours a week, entertaining company and making preparations to entertain others..... and did I mention that I have a big garden to maintain and harvest? ..... I'm not having time to put into research for my blogs. I'll be visiting the park again and will give you better information.

I was impressed by the size of these yucca seed pods. Yucca was an important plant for food and fiber

This was the site right behind the museum that was fascinating with lots of artifacts from the mesas. 

Another view

A closeup

The dwellings are on cliff faces.  The inhabitants had to climb up to the mesas to farm and then carry the harvest back down

Still at the first site. 

I think this is the site where you can only go on ranger led tours. You climb ladders inside and then have a very steep hike back to the beginning of the tour.  I'll have to get in shape. 

Another view

The light was changing as I rushed to see as much as possible

I was fascinated to see all the deep clefts in the mesas which provided the places for cliff dwellings

This site is called many windows and was one of the farthest ones I photographed. 

The earliest dwellings were on the mesas before the cliff dwellings were built. The next set of pictures is of Far View which was a good sized settlement.

Kivas played an important part in the religious life and seem to be in every family's dwelling

Another part of the village

I love the geometry of these places 

A storm approached and the sun was close to setting as I was leaving. I decided to make another stop to see if I could get a sunset picture.  That didn't pan out but meant I didn't leave until almost 9:00 PM.

When this comes out, I'll be spending a week of camping and playing with friends.

I hope to get back in early fall and again in early spring. I want to snowshoe there and do lots more exploring and learning about our ancient peoples. Some of the sites are only open to tours, so I plan to go on a few of them.  

On a personal note, I'll be moving house (tent) from the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park to the West Side when this publishes. My Florida friends and I had a great day hiking in the Bear Lake Area.  They are enjoying a shower and a little walking around in Estes Park while I, still dirty, am downloading pictures and playing on line. I'll be posting blogs about our adventures in a couple of weeks. I still have blogs about the visit from my friend Natalie to publish. 

A Spontaneous Visit to Mesa Verde - Part One - the Landscape

July 25, 2019


I had to take my car into a Toyota dealer for maintenance. Then I only had two choices - drive to Pueblo to the east or Durango to the west.  I found Durango had the best reputation so  made plans to drive the two and a half hour trip.

I got up early - and left just at daylight so I could enjoy the scenic views.  The trip goes out of the valley and through Wolf Pass in the San Juan Mountains before going down to Durango. I got to the car dealer about 9:30 and, by 11:00, I was ready to leave. I had time to get on line and hunt for  a place I'd like to go.  I found that Mesa Verde National Park was only another thirty-five minutes away so I set my GPS for there and headed out. 

Soon I saw a strange mountain, looking almost man made. As I got closer, I realized that this was at the park. When I  got inside the park and near it, I took a picture, but it wasn't fit to print. However the scenery was so vast, I was blown away and had  to stop and learn to take panoramic pictures with my phone. I also took lots of pictures with my camera. 

I decided that I should do a fast pass through as much of the park as I could, but also take a few hikes. I discovered that there is only one concessionaire camping there which is quite expensive. I'll be looking for close places in nearby public lands when I come for more days. Also you have to pay to visit some of the sites and go on a ranger-led tour to reach others.  For those who can't do the strenuous walking, there is also a bus tour. 

But first some of the views from the road or just off it.

The first formation one sees

I had to use the panoramic feature on my phone to impart the size of the view

In places, wildflowers were abundant

I was forced - for six hours - to look at views like this

Close view along a trail near a museum

The valleys were were the Indians lived while they farmed on the mesas

One of the buildings built to look like some of the Indian dwellings

Mesmerizing

Nature's garden design was pretty fine

Late summer golds are appearing

Sunset happened during a storm and was a bust but the view to the ease was amazing

I ended up spending about eight hours at the park and twenty-two hours awake.  After I left the park, after having not eaten all day, I was famished and decided to take myself out to a restaurant. But, by the time I got to Durango, only fast food places were open. So I stopped at a grocery store and bought pulled pork and chips. It was still a very rewarding day.  And my car check was free. 

Stay tuned for part two: Hikes and visits to some of the dwellings.

When this comes out I'll be picking up a couple of friends in Denver and taking them to my campsite in Rocky Mountains National Park.  I'll have a hectic week, with Natalie leaving Tuesday, me working Monday - Wednesday while cooking ahead and packing to leave on Thursday. But eventually I'll get caught up with the tales of my adventures. 

Travels With Winnie - Hike to Zapata Falls

July 20, 2019

When Winnie and Wayne arrived, Wayne almost immediately had trouble breathing. He then developed a cough, had headache sand generally felt bad and was getting worse. Many of his symptoms seemed like a combination of altitude sickness and allergy as his allergy symptoms mimicked mine. He traveled with us two days, then decided to stay home and catch up on his sleep  as he was coughing so much, he was awake a lot of the night.

Winnie and I had spent so much time visiting Blanca Wetlands that we had not gotten to fully enjoy Great Sand Dunes National Park.  Winnie asked to return.  I told her we needed to visit Zapata Falls which is up on Blanca Mountain with amazing views of the San Luis Valley.  And the trail is only a half a mile, although one has to wade through a little rocky creek to get to the view of the falls.   THEN we could continue on to the Park. Winnie loved the idea and we set off. 

For a change, we managed to go directly to the road to the Falls, and then slowly bump our way up the over three miles of rocky switchbacks that climb Mt. Blanca.  But we arrived intact at the almost full parking lot and gathered out hiking sticks and water and set off. (Hiking sticks are MANDATORY for our age group.)

The light on this cactus bloom caught my eye and was my first picture

The trail was very different in feel and appearance and seemed MUCH shorter than my first visit , in March, when it was mostly covered with snow and everything was solid. And it was not moved to take nearly as many pictures of the now almost bare-of-snow mountains.  But what else was different was a cold and fast moving creek between the dry trail and the falls. Winnie hadn't brought her hiking poles, so we shared mine.  Our progress slowed as we searched for the next safe step and probed the deeper parts. Winnie helped one lady who had gotten stuck to a safer path.

Winnie at the entrance to the falls which is in a crack in the rocks that feels like a cave- the girl in the blue shirt is coming out of Zapata Creek

Winnie at the big bolder at the entrance to the "cave".

Almost there - pic by Winnie

Zapata Falls - a hard picture to get - had to wait my turn to take it without people

Whoops - where is the next safe step?  I was using my whitewater skills to plot my course. 

By the time we came back out of the creek,  we weren't sure we still had feet. We walked back to the first bench in the sun and took off our socks and shoes and put our feet on warm rocks while we drained the water out of our shoes and wrung out our socks and started them drying.

Socks, insoles, and shoes drying.  Feet warming up. 

We went on up the mountain to the BLM campsite that occupies a few switchbacks and offers amazing views south and west over the San Luis Valley.

View from the top level of the Campsite. 

We decided we still had lots more time to have fun.  We had gotten to the park the first visit too late to go into the Visitor Center, so we started there to enjoy the exhibits.  Then we hiked down a trail to the creek and walked along the day use area to the road before circling  back to the visitor center.  I hadn't bothered to take my camera, but when the light improved, I took a few pictures with my phone. Then on the way back, while walking on the side of the road, I saw a mule deer buck in velvet taking a rest. I had to get Winnie to come back and take his picture since it required a long lens.

Sand Dunes

I love the geometry formed by the play of dunes and light

Young mule deer buck - by Winnie

Winnie, always even more up for continuing adventures than I, asked about San Luis State Park. Since this could be on our way home, without going out of our way, I agreed to go visit it.  It is an erstwhile state park and offers free electricity but has only vault toilets and no water. But it is on San Luis Lake, which, at times, is one of the local birding hotspots. So we took a little time to enjoy a few species of birds using the lake and to drive through the camping loops.

First gull I've seen in Colorado - think this is a ringed bill gull

White-faced ibis

The birds were far away but the light on their surroundings was outstanding

We got back home, over and hour past supper time and quickly finished  a supper that was mostly ready to heat up. Wayne was still sick and feeling like he had a bad cold, so they decided to cancel the rest of their trip and head home so Wayne could visit his doctor. So the visit was bitter sweet.

Postscript.  Wayne got better after he was home for several days.

August 18, 2019

On a personal note:  My best friend Natalie and her daughter Ellen are currently visiting me. We have been having lots of fun the last few days. We are currently at the library and then will take in Celtic music in the park just behind us.

Travels With Winnie - In Search of the Rio Grande Headwaters

Winnie and I are both paddlers and are interested in rivers. We have paddled the Rio Grand in Texas. The Rio Grande starts in Colorado in the mountains beyond Creede, Colorado in the Rio Grande National Forest. The road to get there is a designated scenic byway, so we decided we would all enjoy the car trip and Winnie and I would jump out a lot for short walks and pictures.

Map of the Rio Grande from Web

We didn't rush to get going, so it was mid morning before we got to Creede.  We got information on things to do in Creede and for a beautiful and historic trip through the old mining area just north of the town. I also did a quick stop at the Forest Service's information center to get the directions to the headwaters. There I got the bad news that you have to hike in or ride in on a four wheel drive vehicle on a very degraded road to reach the actual headwaters of the Rio Grande. We decided to go to the last place recommended for cars, which is about six miles past the first reservoir on the Rio Grande. (I'm going to see how far I can get on another visit. )

I wanted a picture of a mountain scene but couldn't find a pull off spot.  Winnie suggested I take a side road to get the picture. I took it and we found ourselves in a wildflower wonderland with an excellent view of the mountain. Winnie and I piled out and darted around, finding all kinds of wildflowers. And I was able to get a picture of the mountain with a wildflower meadow in the foreground.

Please tell me what these are in a comment if you know them 

The mountain that caused the detour

Winnie with cinquefoil and paintbrush

After several more miles of beautiful views and a few stream crossings we arrived at the turn for the Rio Grand Reservoir.  We thought we had found it when we cam around a corner and found a small lake. It had several species of ducks on it, including babies.

Mother and babies

Rock formation above the lake - that forward rock looked like a resting camel to me

A look at our map informed us that we had several more miles of driving to do to get to the end of the auto road. So we continued upward, stopping to check out campgrounds and find beautiful views of a wild little river.

Winnie looking for the best view upstream

There was lots of white water - for sure this can be paddled a little further south

A view a little further up

This is the same mountain  as in an earlier picture

I took the mountain in the background several times as we got closer to it 

Another stop

Our goal of sticking our toes into the headwaters became a goal of sticking them in at the furthest access point we could reach.  It turned out to be under a bridge just past yet another free campsite that was completely empty.  We took each other's pictures to document this great feat.

This was not cold - but only because I had my feet in a shallow eddy

Winnie looking very sexy

I took a few more pictures on the way back, especially of the long views and the river valley.

A broad view across the valley

The Rio Grande near the reservoir

A closeup of a tiny island

River Valley

Some of the more beautiful rocks and Rocky Mountain Penstemon