United States
Mesa Verde
Cliff palaces built into alcoves seven centuries ago, then abandoned within a generation.
The dwellings appear suddenly, a city of rooms and towers tucked into a sandstone alcove high above the canyon floor, built with a precision that seems impossible for the thirteenth century. The alcove air is cool and still, and fingerprints from the builders survive in the dried mortar.
For over 700 years, from around A.D. 600 to 1300, the Ancestral Pueblo people built thriving communities on the mesas and in the cliffs of Mesa Verde, the green table of southwestern Colorado. The park protects nearly 5,000 known archaeological sites, among them 600 cliff dwellings, with Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in North America, holding around 150 rooms and more than twenty kivas. Around A.D. 1300 the builders left, within a generation or two, for reasons still argued over; their descendants live on in the 27 Pueblos and Tribes the park works with today. Entering a cliff dwelling requires a reservation on a ranger-led tour, and the boldest of them, Balcony House, involves a long ladder, a crawl-through tunnel and an exposed ledge that concentrates the mind wonderfully.
Family
Children who have only met history in books get to climb a ladder into a real cliff city, and the ranger tours are pitched exactly at their questions.
Couple
Book the first tour of the day, descend into an alcove city before the heat, and finish with dinner in the park as the mesa light goes copper.
- Nearly 5,000 known archaeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings, crowd one green mesa in southwestern Colorado.
- Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in North America, held around 150 rooms beneath a single sandstone arch.
- Around A.D. 1300 the builders left within a generation or two, and the reasons are still debated seven centuries on.
- Entering the dwellings is by ranger-led tour, and Balcony House's ladder, tunnel and ledge make it the park's rite of passage.
Dinner at the Metate Room inside the park, named for the corn-grinding stone and drawing its menu from traditional regional ingredients.
Slow red chile at a Mancos bakery café below the mesa, simmered for days from the valley's own ranches.
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