Mesa Verde National Park

My last Colorado National Park. Mesa Verde. Tucked away way down in SW Colorado in the four corners region, this is not an easy park to get to. Your best bet for visiting is flying into Durango, about an hour east of the park. And if you want to tour some of the incredible cliff dwellings, you’ll have to visit between May and October, and don’t forget to make a reservation two weeks in advance.

I did two of the ranger-led tours, both the Cliff Palace and Balcony House tours. And I’d highly recommend you do the same thing, not only do you get the up-close tour of the cliff dwellings, but you get the incredible history and knowledge of the civilization. At its peak, around 5,000 people lived in this high desert plateau, with the largest dwelling supporting around 100 people. Since the average lifespan at the time was about 35, typical households consisted of about three generations. The Pueblo inhabitants left around 1300 A.D., and its suspected that it was due to an extended drought.

Spending two days here really connected me to the land, and to the history that lived here. While seemingly being baked by the high-altitude sun with no cloud cover, I was able to appreciate the seep springs that the Pueblo collected their water from. I was able to walk along the dry, dusty footpaths and imagine the desert plateau covered in corn. I climbed wooden ladders (replicas of the originals of course) to access some of the dwellings, just like the original inhabitants. And I watched a full moon rise above the horizon and climb into the sky, reflecting on how I was watching the same moon rise as the Mesa Verde inhabitants did 700 years go.

This was a photography trip after all, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on the photographic opportunities (or lack thereof). Mesa Verde is an International Dark Sky Park, meaning it’s internationally recognized for its clear, dark skies. The downside is, a large part of the park closes well before it’s dark enough to see stars, so my hopes for shooting astro were dashed. These same parts of the park were closed until 8:30am, meaning no good sunsets either. So as you’ll see in the gallery, I made the most of the daytime hours and the limited areas of the park I could access with the soft light of early morning and late evening. And I was even blessed with an incredible rising Buck Moon, which was unplanned but I turned around and said “Woah, what is that??” as the moon crested the plains. All in all, Mesa Verde was an incredible, and underrated, national park to add to the list.