Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde – A Photo Essay

From Afar, Cliff House

From Afar, Cliff Palace © 2010 Bo Mackison

There it was, occupying a great oval space under a grand cliff, wonderful to behold, appearing like an immense ruined castle with dismantled towers. ~ Frederick Chapin, 1891, the first published account of Cliff Palace

Mesa Verde National Park was established in 1906 by proclamation of President Theodore Roosevelt. It was the first national park that set aside land to protect the culture of a people. The park is also a designated United Nations World Heritage Site. It is located near the Four Corners area (where the borders Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona meet) in the southwestern corner of Colorado.

The Pueblan Ancestral people lived in this area from about 500 AD to 1200 AD, a span of approximately 700 years. In the early 1200s, a migration of the people took place, and Mesa Verde was deserted in just a couple of generations. Reasons for their departure remain speculative.

Cliff House, Beginning of Tour

Cliff Palace, Beginning of Tour © 2010 Bo Mackison

Mesa Verde National Park offers guided tours of five different cliff dwellings locations in the park. The tour groups are limited in number and size. All tickets are sold in the Visitor Center and it is a good idea to get there early, especially during the peak months, to get tickets. Access to the sites is limited to protect these sensitive archeological and cultural areas, but a guided tour is well worth the time and money.

Spider on the Tour © 2010 Bo Mackison

Spider on the Tour

We had an unexpected visitor on our tour, and I don’t think he bought a ticket either! I didn’t get too close to this hairy tarantula nor did I do much research on this spider. If you are curious you can check out the link.

Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings

Mesa Verde Cliff Palace © 2010 Bo Mackison

The Cliff Palace has more than 150 rooms, usually about 6 feet x 8 feet in size, and 23 kivas, circular pits that were used as ceremonial structures. At its peak, about 1200 AD, there were perhaps 100 inhabitants in this particular dwelling. It is theorized that this, one of the few complex building sites in the region, was used more for administration of the nearby people and ceremonial rituals. Most ruins throughout the National Park and surrounding area were one and two room structures, many on the mesa tops, not tucked into the cliff overhangs.

More photos from Mesa Verde in the next post.

Rivalry – Chicago (Bears) vs. Green Bay (Packers)

Chicago vs. Green Bay

R is for Rivalry © 2009 Bo Mackison

R is for RIVALRY.

This Sunday (January 23) the Green Bay Packers will play the Chicago Bears in Soldiers’ Field, downtown Chicago, for the NFC  Championship, and a coveted place — is that an under-statement? — in Super Bowl XLV.

I took this photo a couple of years ago, noted its potential at some unidentified later date, and used it in an alphabet post on Seeded Earth blog in 2008. Then I stored it in my photo files, and waited.

This seems an appropriate time to resurrect the Green Bay/Chicago sign. Even Wisconsin citizens who aren’t die-hard football fans, or even football fans at all — and yes, there are a few — get a flicker in their eyes at the thought of playing the Bears for the NFC Championship…and marching out of Soldiers’ Field victorious on our way to the Super Bowl!

Hmm.

V is for VICTORY. I better look for another photograph…..

Canyon de Chelly – A Photo Essay

Canyon de Chelley

Canyon de Chelly © 2010 Bo Mackison

Canyon de Chelley National Monument is located in northeastern Arizona near the town of Chinle. There are over 2700 archeological structures and cliff dwellings in this area, though only a few have been made structurally sound to allow visitors. Only one trail is open to the general public, but there are numerous guides available for further explorations in the monument.

Shadow Photographers at Canyon de Chelley

Shadow Photographers at Canyon de Chelly © 2010 Bo Mackison

We had only a couple of hours to explore , and we did so from the Rim Road probably the most popular way to see the Monument, though truly one sees only a fraction of the Canyons from this vantage point. The next time I visit Canyon de Chelley, I will plan enough time to employ a native guide and truly see the wonders of this remarkable area.

Canyon de Chelley

Canyon de Chelly National Monument © 2010 Bo Mackison

This photo was taken from a trail off the South Rim Drive at Tunnel Lookout. Just barely visible is the bottom of the canyon with trees and a grassy pasture. Canyon de Chelly is unique among all the National Park units in that it is entirely in the Navajo Tribal Trust Land. The National Park Service has a partnership with the Navajo Nation to manage park resources and approximately forty Navajo families live within the boundaries of the National Monument.

Canyon de Chelley Landscape

Canyon de Chelly Landscape © 2010 Bo Mackison

The monument encompasses approximately 84,000 acres of lands located entirely on the Navajo Nation. The monument covers 131 square miles and encompasses the floors and rims of the three major canyons — Canyon de Chelly, Canyon del Muerto, and Monument Canyon. It is a vast area. See the tiny specks of blue in the photograph – two visitors at the lookout from which I had earlier taken the above photographs.

Hubbell Trading Post – A Photo Essay

Hubbell Trading Post NHS

Hubbell Trading Post NHS © 2010 Bo Mackison

I was going to move on to Mesa Verde, but then I found another catalog of photos taken of the exterior of Hubbell Trading Post NHS and also of Canyon de Chelly National Monument. So today I’m posting the last of Hubbell — honest! — and tomorrow I will do just a few of the Canyon. We were only able to spend a few hours at de Chelly, so I have only the most basic of road side shots, but for anyone who has never seen those glorious red canyons, they deserve to be seen.

Stockades at Hubbell Trading Post

Stockades at Hubbell Trading Post © 2010 Bo Mackison

All the while we were walking around the Hubbell Trading Post, I felt like I was in a different era. Half expected to see a trading expedition come in. But no, mostly just the ghosts of the past, and a few, very talented Navajo artists who exhibit and sell their art at the Post.

Trading Post

Trading Post © 2010 Bo Mackison

So, when the pace of today gets too much, and you vow you want to return to a simpler life, take a visit (or a photo visit) to Hubbell Trading Post NHS in northern Arizona. You’ll either yearn for the olden days — or be more appreciative of some of the things that make your life a heck of a lot easier.

Trading Post

Hubbell, Gated

Gated © 2010 Bo Mackison

Photographs from Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site in northern Arizona.

Hubbell Trading Post NHS

Hubbell Trading Post © 2010 Bo Mackison

This place was built to last — rock solid. Even the benches are rock solid — literally!

Next stop. Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.