Yesterday we toured two dwellings and we were very hot and exhausted (and just a touch cranky) when we got back to the RV park. Today we were much smarter - did one dwelling this morning and then back to the park to nap, swim and relax. Will follow the same routinely tomorrow.
The dwellings are truly amazing. These natives once lived on top of the Mesa, but then moved below the mesa to build the dwellings into the sandstone cliffs. Every day they would go up to the Mesa to tend to the corn, cut wood, hunt for small animals (all of the large animals were gone). The heat is intense and lightning strikes would start fires. It is estimated that it takes 300 years for a mature tree to come back and they were dependent on the wood for fires and construction of the cliff dwellings. They do not think that the dwellings were defensive but it's hard to believe this. The dwelling that we went to today had only one entrance through a small tunnel in the stone with lookout advantage that was extensive. How could this not have been defensive?
The following pictures are from the Balcony House dwelling where about 40 people lived.
This is the entrance and the first of several ladders that we had to climb, Winn slept through this climb!
Some shots of Balcony House with the last photos being the way out for us (but the way in for the natives).
It was hard to get good pictures of the Balcony House since we never saw it from a distance but just climbed right in to it.
The following are some photos of the Cliff House, a much larger structure. They believe that it might have been used as a meeting place since it was large. This dwelling is often the one that you see in history books, etc.
The larger sunken structure was a kiva, used for ceremonial purposes. It was covered with a wooden ceiling (all of them have collapsed).
And I'll end this posting with some good time shots. Hope that you are all well and enjoying the Labor Day Weekend.
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Location:Cortez, Colorado
