“Go back as far as you’d like and find the first scratching in Earth. The easiest observation is sublime as simple: Humans were meant to create.” – Old Sean
Old World Roadsign
After leaving Arches National Park, Evan, Krone and I continued south, gradually working our way past the last few miles of red stone and into the flat hills and large grey rolling hills of Southern Colorado. Our next destination was our final major stop, Mesa Verde, the enormous national park that hosted the mysterious cliffside ruins of the ancient native people.
Before, arriving, however, we made a slight detour, spinning down a narrow road to visit the Newspaper Rock Archaeological Site. This area is a huge petroglyph panel etched into sandstone that records nearly two millennia of human activity, likely from the Archaic, Basketmaker, Fremont and Pueblo cultures. During the Americas’ recorded history, Ute, Navajo and European Americans made similar contributions.
Unlike Egyptian hieroglyphs these petroglyphs have no standard language or translating stones nearby. Therefore, understanding much of what’s written is educated guesswork.
The stone itself is fantastic.
It’s a blackened surface with clear and wild carvings overlapping one another in a shamble, with mountain goats and carved buffalo as well as multi-toed footprints and men striding with bows and swords. Lopsided wagon wheels arise in some areas while long, deliberate squiggles cross others.
It’s perhaps an indecipherable mystery for the rest of time.
Languid Crests
We didn’t spend long hiking around Newspaper Rock. The strain of hiking around Arches was still fresh on our shoulders, and we quickly piled back into our car to continue south.
The next leg of the journey brought us to Mesa Verde.
Bluntly put, Mesa Verde was the first mountain range we found unimpressive. Growing up and living in Texas gives my compatriots and I a weird relationship with mountains.
Slap some snow on top, or make sheer peaks, or a show a wrangle of red sandstone or grace the entire surface in lush greenery, and we’ll lose our collective minds, nudging at one another to look out the window at a particular titanic beauty.
But while Mesa Verde is enormous, the mountains are slow, ponderous rises breaching slowly into the sky. Their stones a dull grey and the foliage covering the range is a muted green of gnarled and dead shrubby. They have their own majesty, but I wouldn’t call them visually stunning.
The second thing to know about Mesa Verde National Park is it’s immense size. It takes a very, very long time to traverse the windy uphill roads that snake through the park. Switchbacks going up nearly take thirty minutes of driving by themselves.
Finding Sky Huts
All this information, however, vanished from my mind when we finally reached the first destination, Spruce Tree Terrace. The native people carved an impossibility right into the side of an indomitable cliff.
Nestled into a long cavern facing open air, sturdy buildings of light stone were built in a wild jumble, each house and structure unique to fit the space the cave supplied. Trees grew overhead on the lip of the cavern and thin trails traced their way into the city.
These Natives were spectacular builders, incorporating the natural environment in their construction process. Multi-tiered buildings made of sandstone shaped into blocks and motored together were used for religious ceremonies, storing crops, and general living. Ironically, the best clues for how these natives lived comes from their garbage heaps at the bottom of the canyon, revealing scraps of inedible food, broken bits of pottery or ruined tools.
As we toured the upper rim of the mountain, we were treated to other structures the indigenous people incorporated.
The land had been occupied and abandoned several times according to archeologists, for completely unknown reasons. Pit Houses during the Basketmaker era were dugout homes with wood and hide homes covering the depression, complete with storage bins, a fire pit and wind bracers near the entrance.
The Kiva was also on display, a much more complex structure that created rounded chambers with ladder entry through a hole in the roof. A Kiva is an important structure for ceremonies in modern times.
Most interestingly were the numerous farm locations found throughout Mesa Verde, with signs of squash, corn, beans and squash while also hunting animals and foraging. As such, the complex culture found here was agricultural as well as architectural.
Sheer Citadels
Spruce Tree Terrace wasn’t the only site of immense interest.
The Sun Temple, one of the most prominent structures in the area was built atop the mountain, rather than inside a cliff overhang. The mysterious structure is unlike anything else build amongst the cliff-dwellers. Stylistically it is distinct from other structures and archeologist’s best guesses imply that it may have been used to track celestial motions.
My favorite view was the Square Tower House, another impossible structure that rose boldly into the air. As native people accessed this sheer cliffside with a series of ladders and ropes, native preservationists do the same.
The list goes on, as we visited further ruins. Cliff Palace held temples and living quarters amongst it’s closed grasp. The Fire Temple held little evidence of domestic activities, but likely served as a ceremony and dance plaza. The New Fire House, on a nearby alcove, was thought to house the Fire Temple’s caretakers.
Oddly, most of the area driving around the top of the temple was completely burned, a strong blaze sweeping through some time ago. Gnarled trees of near-ash made up the majority of the area near the Sun Temple.
A final note; to tour inside most of these buildings, an appointment with a guide or ranger is necessary prior to arrival.
And with that, our journey was done. We drove back down the mountains in a swaying drive. The rest of our day is going to be spent reaching Albuquerque.
Until then,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written April 24th 2021
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