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Mesa Verde celebrates centennial |
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Written by Knight Ridder
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Wednesday, 28 June 2006 |
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MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK — Its name is Spanish for “green table,” but that title doesn’t do Mesa Verde National Park justice.
The green in the park that covers more than 52,000 acres in the southwest corner of Colorado — tangles of juniper and pinon — is just one color in the palette used to paint the landscape.
Sandstone glows golden in early-morning and late-afternoon sunlight, and it turns shades of cream and soft gray in midday shadows. Tawny hides of deer flash in the forests, and soaring birds create navy shadows on the rocks.
When the sun warms the ruins that are this park’s treasure, it can transport visitors hundreds of years back, to a time when Mesa Verde was the home of the ancestral Puebloans, American Indians who lived throughout the Four Corners area.
On a recent late afternoon, the sun played over rooms and windows at Spruce Tree House, the third largest cliff-house complex at Mesa Verde. It angled into back rooms, lighting up dark spaces with soot-smudged ceilings.
Water from late-spring snows poured off the mesa top above, cascading to form a sparkling wall and stopping visitors from venturing close to the edge.
Archaeologists say about 80 people lived in this structure that was built between A.D. 1211 and 1278 by the ancestors of the Puebloan people of the Southwest.
A natural cave made this an attractive location for the complex that contains 130 rooms and eight kivas, or ceremonial chambers. That geologic detail also has helped protect the rooms and chambers, making it one of the least-deteriorated structures in the park.
The residents of Spruce Tree House were among thousands of ancestral Puebloans who lived in the region. They arrived on the mesa between A.D. 500 and 600, building pit houses and raising crops.
Generation after generation, they thrived, perfecting farming methods and building increasingly elaborate structures. But by A.D. 1300 — less than 800 years after they arrived — they were gone. They left behind tantalizing clues of their existence — a glimpse at an ancient life that has formed the centerpiece of a modern national park — but also many questions.
It’s that drive to learn more about the past that keeps archaeologists and anthropologists busy and Mesa Verde visitors captivated. And the celebration of the park’s 100th anniversary this year has generated even more interest.
Mesa Verde has always been unique in the park system. This is the first and only park created for the protection and preservation of archaeological resources.
It is the only World Heritage Site in Colorado. Conde Nast Traveler chose it as the top historic monument in the world, and National Geographic Traveler chose it as one of the “50 places of a Lifetime — the World’s 50 Greatest Destinations,” in a class with the Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China and the Giza Pyramids.
The park, perched on a mesa that can be seen for miles, is in a pinon-juniper ecosystem and has unique geologic features. But its main treasures are its ruins — more than 4,000 separate historic ruins that lie within the boundaries of the park. Some are large, impressive structures such as Spruce Tree House, one of more than 600 dwellings built like Medieval castles into the sandstone cliffs beneath the mesa. Others are the remnants of villages on top: round towers, reservoirs, check dams and other evidence of the agricultural lifestyle of the residents.
The ruins on the mesa are the most intriguing links to the past for Tom Carr, an archeologist with the Colorado Historical Society.
Archaeologists have been working at Mesa Verde for more than 100 years, but their work is just a beginning, Carr says. “The park’s not fully surveyed, and it’s hardly been touched in terms of excavations.”
The first recorded exploration of the Mesa Verde area by people of European descent was in 1874, when noted photographer W.H. Jackson entered a cliff house in the neighboring Ute Mountain Tribal Park. Jackson’s visit was followed by others, and by the late 1880s, active exploration and digging had begun in the ruins.
Public support for protecting the area as a national park began to mount as artifacts were removed. In 1901, a bill was introduced before Congress to create a national park called “Colorado Cliff Dwellings National Park,” but it didn’t return from committee.
Four more bills were introduced in the next five years, but all failed. Then, in 1905, a bill calling for the creation of Mesa Verde National Park passed and was signed by President Theodore Roosevelt on June 29, 1906. That same year, Congress passed the Antiquities Act that made it a federal crime to collect or destroy historic or prehistoric buildings or objects on federal land.
Since its early days, Mesa Verde has drawn archaeologists from around the world.
“In the past 100 years, we have developed methods for excavations that they didn’t have in the beginning,” Carr says. “There are new technical methods for analyzing sites, but we still have to take our time. If we excavate all the sites too quickly, it’s a disruptive process.”
Carr says archaeological research in the park “is a balance between conservation, excavation and interpretation. It all has to relate to `How many resources are there to protect?’ `What are the methods that can be used?’ and `What are the needs of the people visiting the park and the researchers that interact with them?’”
Mesa Verde can teach visitors about nature, but also about their past, Carr says.
“We connect with nature at places like Rocky Mountain National Park. We connect with nature and humanity in a very deep way at Mesa Verde.”
Mesa Verde isn’t a destination park like Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon.
“Visitors have to make a concerted effort to get here,” says Tessy Shirakawa, chief of visitor services for the park.
The entrance is marked on U.S. Highway 160 between Cortez and Mancos, but once past the ranger station, there’s a 20-mile drive up a winding road to the top of the mesa. There’s a modern lodge, Far View, 15 miles from the entrance, with 13 clusters of lodge buildings and a restaurant but no in-room TVs. Morefield Campground, 4 miles from the entrance and with 435 sites, is the park’s only camping area.
Still, visitors — 474,000 in 2004, the last year on record — find their way to the mesa, Shirakawa says. “Most often, they come with very specific images in their minds of what the park is and what they are going to see.”
The images come from “things they read in their history books in school or saw in a documentary on TV,” Shirakawa says. “They have a visual icon of Cliff Palace or Balcony House — one of the cliff dwellings.”
Because most visitors to Mesa Verde have an idea of what they are going to see, “they understand why we give them a ranger-dependent experience.”
“They understand the value of what they get to see.”
At Mesa Verde, very few trails are open to casual hikers. Most of the cliff dwellings have rangers who lead hikes to them or are stationed in the ruin to answer questions and direct visitors.
“There is so much left to be done in the park, and so many questions yet to be answered,” archaeologist Carr says. “I think most people understand the significance of that, and they respect it.”
IF YOU GO
• Mesa Verde National Park: www.nps.gov/meve
• 970.529.4461
• The park is open daily, year-round
• Entrance fee: $10, good for seven days. Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum and Spruce Tree House are open year-round for free, self-guided tours.
• Ranger-led tours: Tickets, $3 each, available at Far View Visitor Center, open 8 a.m-5 p.m. April 9-Oct. 9
• Cliff Palace tours, April 9-Nov. 4 (after Visitor Center is closed for year, buy tickets at museum)
• Balcony House, April 30-Oct. 9. (Balcony House tours involve steep ladders and climbing through a tunnel.)
• At the more remote Wetherill Mesa, open May 28-Sept. 4, Long House requires a ticket, Step House does not.
CENTENNIAL EVENTS
• Tickets for ranger-led, two-hour hikes and to sites open for the centennial available online at www.mesaverde2006.org, which lists all centennial events.
LODGING
• Inside the park: Far View Lodge, $110-$127 nightly, or Morefield Campground, $20-$25; www.visitmesaverde.com or 800.449.2288
• Outside the park, Mancos, Cortez and Durango offer a variety of lodging and dining; www.mesaverdecountry.com
ACTIVITIES
- Four Corners National Monument, where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico meet, www.mesaverde.com/fcmonument.htm.
- San Juan Skyway, www.byways.org/browse/byways/2101
- Anasazi Heritage Center, www.co.blm.gov/ahc
- Escalante Ruin, www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/amsw/sw25.htm
- Aztec Ruins National Monument, N.M., www.nps.gov/azru
- Chaco Canyon, N.M., www.nps.gov/chcu
READ ALL ABOUT IT
“Mesa Verde: The First 100 Years,” published by the Mesa Verde Museum Association and Fulcrum Publishing, edited by Rose Houk and Faith Marcovecchio with a foreward by Ben Nighthorse Campbell and essays by Ann Hammond Zwinger and Florence Lister. $21.95 | Only registered users can write comments.
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