Monday - Day 19

Mesa Verde was fantastic. We are continually surprised by the crowds, especially this late in the year.

Views from the park. These snow covered mountains are not in the park.

Hiking from the parking lot up to the fire lookout station sure caused us to do some heavy breathing.

Views are absolutely stunning.

A little of the road we drove in on, it seemed like we were driving around the Swiss Alps.

The small trees/shrubs had leaves that looked like oak leaves.

One of the ruins we walked around.

The first cliff dwelling we looked at. We would have loved to have gone on one of the guided tours of the place but it was a 2.4 mile hike, and a long way down and back up, from where we took the photos. I don't think either of us could have made that hike at sea level. I'm certain we couldn't do it at over 7,000 feet above sea level.

They think these have been abandoned for over 800 years. No one knows why they were abandoned.

 This is the canyon that runs up to the cliff dwelling.

This was another cliff dwelling several miles away. You could take a ranger guided tour of it but the hike was far to strenuous for us to attempt.

A map of the park. We drove nearly 50 miles, round trip, in to and out of the park. I hope this shows up so that you can see a little of it.

This is a satellite view of the park area. There is a lot of "flat" areas where Indians farmed, MANY years ago. An interesting feature of the "flat" areas is that they tilt down to the south. We were told that this "tilt" towards the sun adds about 20 days to the growing season.

 A physically fit person could easily spend several days hiking into different areas of this park that are open to the public. He/she could spend years in the park exploring, it is over 50,000 acres.

We had an awesome day, but we were sure tired by the end of day.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.