Cliff Dwellings of Ancient Puebloans

The weather finally improved here today long enough for us to go and visit the Cliff Dwellings of the Ancient Anasazi people. These cliff dwellings were used by the inhabitants from about 700-1300 AD. Surprisingly, the cliff dwellings have survived quite well and getting the chance to view them was certainly worth the wait.
We opted to take a guided tour led by a National Park Service Ranger. This turned out to be a really great decision because we were the only four people on the tour. In the summer, there can be as many as 60 people on the tour so we were privileged to be able to ask as many questions as we wanted and the guide took particular interest in educating Hayley and Jack.

There are about 100 different cliff dwelling areas on the south side of Mesa Verde. These Ancient Puebloan people are the anscestors of the Indian tribes of the Pueblo, Hopi, Zuni and many other contemporary tribes. The cliff dwellings were "rediscovered" by two cattle ranchers in the 1880s. The dwellings were built of sandstones and mortar. The back of the dwellings were storage areas, the middle living areas and the lower front sections were the Kivas. The Kivas were certainly the most interesting part (Hayley is pictured ascending out of a Kiva above). The Kiva was a sacred family place where only a kinlike clan could enter. Sort of like our little camper. The whole way back to the campsite from the Mesa we talked about what our Kiva should look like. We won't tell you because our Kiva is private and sacred to us.

Overall, we all agreed that visiting the cliff dwellings was near the top of our list of favorite things we've had the opportunity to do this trip.