MESA VERDE COUNTRY® ANSWERS
FIVE COMMON — YET UNUSUAL — QUESTIONS
Land of national parks, forests, monuments, scenic byways spurs curiosity
CORTEZ, CO When visitors arrive in southwestern Colorado, they are usually ready for excitement and adventure, and full of questions. But in an area roughly the size of Rhode Island, that lays claim to two national scenic byways, one national forest, one national park, two national monuments, and one tribal park, the questions often stray far from the typical lodging and dining ones.
1. Where are the Indians?
Everywhere! Today, Native Americans are part of everyday life and culture in Mesa Verde Country® and enjoy the shopping, dining, and recreational activities the area has to offer.
Traditional Native American culture lives on at the Cortez Cultural Center, where free Native American dances and cultural performances take place six nights a week during the summer. At the Ute Tribal Park, operated by the Ute Mountain Utes — one of the seven original Ute bands that inhabited Colorado — a Ute guide will interpret Ute Indian history, pictographs, geologic land formations, and Ancestral Pueblo petroglyphs, artifacts and dwellings.
For more insight into how Native Americans in this area used to live, Mesa Verde National Park, Hovenweep National Monument and the Anasazi Heritage Center provide additional glimpses into the past. Galleries and trading posts in Mesa Verde Country® reflect the culture and creativity of the southwest as it is represented today.
2. Why aren't there stairs to the upper stories of the cliff dwellings?
When the dwellings were built (800-1,000 years ago), "staircases" more often took the form of ladders, or hand and toeholds carved into the sandstone cliffs. Today, visitors may visit these dwellings throughout the area for an authentic look. At Mesa Verde National Park, a park ranger guides visitors down a 100-foot canyon descent, up a ladder to a second-story dwelling, through a tunnel, and up a sandstone cliff (but no hand or toeholds required.)
3. Why is everything so old?
Because much of Mesa Verde Country® is old! Nowhere else in the United States is there found such a concentration of archeological sites. In fact, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument boasts the highest density of archaeological sites anywhere in the United States. And with its spectacular mesa-top villages and multi-story cliff dwellings, there's a reason Mesa Verde National Park was deemed one of the "50 places to visit in a lifetime" by National Geographic Traveler and one of The New York Times' "1000 Places to See Before You Die".
4. Why did they build the cliff dwellings so far away from the road?
The Ancestral Puebloans actually did not build their homes far away from their roads; our current roads simply did not exist when they lived here. The Ancestral Puebloans had their own trails and trading routes to connect them to their neighbors. Thanks to indicators such as macaw feathers and copper bells found in archaeological sites, we know that their routes also connected them to trading partners as far away as present-day California and Mexico.
Today our national scenic byway, Trail of the Ancients, takes visitors to the incredible archaeological sites in Mesa Verde Country®. Along the way, make sure to get out of your car and really enjoy every stop along the Trail.
5. Are we there yet?
The wide-open spaces, vistas and distances are why the area is called Mesa Verde "Country®". To many people, it feels as big as a whole country! The San Juan National Forest, comprising nearly 2 million acres, covers an area 120 x 60 miles. Two national scenic byways cover hundreds of miles; the San Juan Skyway winds through Telluride, Ouray, Silverton, Dolores, Mancos, and Durango, four wilderness areas and one national park; the Trail of the Ancients covers 114 mostly uninhabited miles of archaeology and culture in the heart of the Colorado Plateau.
|
