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I finally arrived in Colorado though I wasn't due in Telluride for a few days
still. On my drive north from Four Corners to Cortez, I noticed a cool-looking
mesa to the east whose top looked verdantly green and the
surrounding it quite difficult. I came to find this was Mesa Verde National
Park (home of the famous Anasazi cliff dwellings) while I was doing some
research in Cortez and decided to pay it a visit the next day. There are a small
handful of summits that can be reached from the main road winding through the
park. There are not many trails in the park and as I came to find, cross-country
travel is forbidden. I had slept just outside the park on the north side of
US160 and was driving into the park shortly after 6a, well before the entrance
kiosk was manned. Temeratures started in the
high 50s and moved up to the high 70s
before I exited the park around 1p. I enjoyed the strolls on empty trails but
not so much the more crowded venues around the cliff dwellings.
Point Lookout
This is the northernmost summit in the park and the first one encountered on
the drive in. From the park road near the entrance to be s
urrounded by impossible cliffs, but a trail leads to the summit from the
. is at the large upper parking lot
for the amphitheater. The trail is just over a mile, gaining about 400ft. Good
views overlooking Montezuma Valley to and Mancos Valley to
.
Lone Cone
This one has no trail. I started on the inside the
campground and then went up the west side - steep. At the far
is a neat sandstone promontory that has . There's also many
decades worth of graffiti carved into the rock.
Prater Ridge
This is the highpoint of the most extensive trail network in the park. The north
and south loops combined are almost 8mi in length. The summit is the highpoint
of the north loop. The trails can be accessed from either the Knife Edge
Trail (there is a connector trail not shown on the park map) or the
which is also inside the campground near the RV
water/dump station.
Moccasin Overlook
This used to be a stopping point along the old park road before it was
realigned. There is a small turnout on the south side of the road southwest of
the summit. One can easily find the north of the current
road and follow it up to the south side of the summit, with a short
cross-country
climb at the end. One could similarly use this starting point for Moccasin
Mesa, another point that used to be along the old road. I didn't do this one.
It was at this time that I noticed the park brochure says "Hike on designated
trails only."
Park Point
This is the highest point in the park. A road goes within a few hundred feet of
the summit. then lead to the highpoint which is crowned by
a . More than 70% of the park has burned in the past
decades due to dry lightning strikes. Maybe that's what drove the pueblo
dwellers out from time to time.
Navajo Hill
This small hill has been overrun by the Far View Lodge, a collection of 60s-ish
low budget lodging buildings. The highpoint is just north of the highest
building. The top is quite rounded, so finding an actual highpoint is next to
impossible.
Far View Group
Not a summit, but a collection of , ,
and
that have been excavated over the past century and partiall restored. The park
ranger at the site told me that it was pretty much excavated as we see it, but
the upper rock layers in places have more modern cement used as mortar. It
appears to have been painstakingly repaired from the poorer condition it was
found in when discovered more than 100yrs ago.
Cliff Palace and Balcony House
Both of these require tickets for close-up tours which I didn't have since the
Visitor Center at the entrance didn't open until 8a. The Cliff Palace at least
has a from which you can on the
as well as the tour currently in progress. A second
tour group was convening nearby, including the likes of this
with a selfie stick. That was pretty much my cue to leave the park...
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