Here is Cliff Palace, the most famous of the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings. Access is restricted to 50 person tours throughout the day. They last about an hour. It is a short walk down to cliff palace. The exit involves a ladder and narrow sandstone steps. The 150 room, 21 kiva structure housed about 100 persons. It is thought it might have had an administrative function. Most rooms are built without a roof, using a ladder to climb down inside. It was built between 1260 and 1280. By 1300, it was vacant.
Heavily looted in its years after rediscovery in 1888 by some local ranchers, the area became a National Park in 1906. Prior to that, looters had taken away most of the artifacts. Gustaf Nordenskiold, a Swedish archaeologist, visited in 1891 and proceed to remove mountains of artifacts, loaded onto railroad cars. He was arrested in Durango for the looting but there not being any laws against it, released. Most of those artifacts ended up in a Norwegian museum. In that era, bringing home "trophies" from historic places was an accepted practice. Professional pot hunters continued to loot the site for years.
A ladder takes us out of the site. Back in the day, they used hand and foot holds carved into the sandstone, to climb the cliff wall.
Meanwhile, over at Balcony House, we stand on the edge of the kiva. Called Balcony House for the intact balcony that still exists on one of the dwellings. In the alcove, it is protected from the elements. The wood used for the balcony is still original.
Construction began in 1180 with the first phase complete by 1240. Then two other waves of construction occurred in the 1240s and 1270s.
The last construction filled in this entrance to the village. It had been a walkway through the wall crack but it was filled in. A 12 foot long tunnel was left to access the village. To get to this village, you'd have to use hand and foot holds in the rock, as well as ladders and then crawl through this tunnel. Restricting access to the village was probably done due to conflict. Why else would a cliff dwelling that you could just walk into, have converted its entrance to this tortuous approach if it were not for defensive reasons. It was vacant by 1300.
After the tunnel, this.
After the ladder, this.
Spruce Tree House, another well preserved cliff dwelling was closed but I was able to get these telephoto shots from the canyon rim.
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