Some friends from when we lived in Bend came through the area and one of the days we booked a cliff dwelling tour in Mesa Verde National Park.
Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America with 150 rooms and 23 kivas. The structures were built by the Ancestral Puebloans. Tree ring data indicates the construction took place between 1190 CE through 1260 CE and the dwellings were abandoned by 1300 for reasons not entirely known. Cliff Palace was rediscovered in 1888 by Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason while they were looking for stray cattle.
The structures at Cliff Palace are built of sandstone, mortar, and wooden beams. Interestingly, they didn’t make bricks. They took rocks and used tools to chip away at them to make rectangular shapes. Then mortar held everything together. The doorways and rooms looked tiny to me. Indeed, the average height of a female was 5′ and a male was a little taller at maybe 5’6″.
My favorite part of this dwelling was the kivas. There are around 23 kivas at Cliff Palace. These are large round rooms dug down into the earth and then reinforced. They had elaborate wooden ceilings back then, but none are left today. Kivas were used for gathering spots; maybe ceremonial, political, or social.
Our tour guide did a great job at encouraging everyone to step back in time and imagine life then. The average lifespan was only 35 and it was a hard life. You lived in the cliffs, necessitating a hike to get to food and crops. They used dryland farming meaning there was no irrigation other than rainfall or snow. But to get water to drink and cook with, you had to find water sources and collect it. Of course, then you had to carry it back to your cliff.
I liked that you didn’t just view this dwelling from afar, but actually got to hike down to it and really get a sense of awe. There are several cliff dwelling tours in the park. We toured Step House in the past and I like this one better.
This is a phenomenal experience and I encourage anyone to check it out.
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