Leaving Taos

This morning Liz and I said our goodbyes to Bob and Cynthia and returned to our trip.

Before we left, I managed to assemble the troups for one last group photo.

Rocky Mountains

Our course from Taos to Mesa Verde lead us through the heart of the Rocky Mountains. The trip across the mountains took several hours, even though the milage we covered was fairly short.

Near the top of the mountain, there were several overlook points that gave clear views of the valley below. Liz and I stopped at several of these places to take pictures. The overlooks that we stopped at were all above 10,000 feet.

This first overlook was very close to the top of the mountain, and gave a great view of the valley a few thousand feet below and an adjacent peak.

This picture was taken at the same site. The outside temperature was about 50 degrees, but there was a 20-30 mile an hour wind gusting over mountain. The temperature with wind chill must have been in the 20s or 30s. Before, I would have never believed a place could be so cold in June.

This is another of the overlooks on the opposite side of the mountain. We learned our lesson from the last stop and didn't get out for very long here.

Colorado

We entered Colorado some time around noon. So far what we've seen of Colorado is not much different than New Mexico

Entering Colorado.

From here you can see the distant Rocky Mountains that we were in just a few hours before.

Mesa Verde

This is the stop that Liz has been waiting for. Mesa Verde is a national park with some 600 ancient cliff dwellings and thousands of separate archaelogical sites. We were doing the quick tour so we only hit a few.

This sign marks the entrance to Mesa Verde. The entrance is 15 miles of steep twisting mountain roads that lead you to the information center. The separate sites are several miles further.

I love tunnels.

Like in the Rocky's, Mesa Verde had several overlook points. This is a picture of knife edge point.

Along the side of the lookout point a small hiking trail led off around the edge of the cliff. Liz and I hiked to the end of the trail and found rock that made for a perfect bench overlooking the cliff.

Further around the mountain different types of plateaus, or mesas, can be seen.

Almost, every stopping point gave a unique view of the mountains and park.

Liz and I elected to take a hour-long guided tour of some of the old cave dwellings. There were two different tours available, but the second entailed climbing multiple 20-30 ft ladders and finally a vertical climb up a 30 ft rope ladder along the rock face. We decided to wimp out and take the easier tour. We didn't want them to have to send rescue helicopters to pull us off of the cliff.

This is a view of the Cliff Dwellings ruins before we started the tour.

From the platform we were on, you could see deep into the canyon below.

This is our tour guide for the caverns. She was a really good story teller.

Actually, from this picture she looks like she's rapping, but she's not.

If you look on the middle left of the picture, you can see the cliff dwellings. Our tour ran from where this picture was taken to the cliff dwellings. The exit though is at the top of the cliff where the crack in the rocks is (middle of the picture). It's a long way up!

Here we are standing at the base of the cliff dwellings. The tour guide is telling us stories of how the Ute Indians prepared food and accomplished daily tasks. Turns out that the Indians made small niches in the cavern wall and climbed the sheer rock face to get to the top of the mesa. This is where they grew crops, hunted, etc. Anything that needed to transport (crops, dead animals, water) had to be carried on their back while climbing the rock face. Crazy!

Here, we're leaving the cliff dwellings up a steep stair case and then a series of wooden ladders up the side of the rock face.

On the way down, Liz caught a picture of the Rocky's off in the distance.