Colorado Trip - Days One and Two16 March, 2006 |
|
(Click on the images to view larger versions)
|
|
|
|
This trip was taken so that Karen could visit the cliff dwellings in Mese Verde region and Fergus could finally get to see his favourite football team on their home ground. We left Seattle on 23rd August. |
|
DAY ONE: We flew from Seattle to Denver and then from Denver down to Durango. Then drove from there to Cortez.
We did a little bit of shopping so that I could look the part. |
 |
||||
 |
Then we went out for dinner in Cortez. | ||||
|
DAY TWO: We had booked a full day tour that would take us into the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation. It was an early start, and, as these pictures will show, this was a really busy day - with a some hiking and a lot of ladder climbing - all in the searing heat. They opened up the reservation for tours in the late eighties and it is much less excavated than the Mesa Verde National Park - and with no facilities or mod cons. Fergus was already kitted out with his hat. The edge of the Mesa Verde region is shown in the background. |
 |
||||
 |
 |
Our first stop was at "Red Pottery Kiva". For
centuries after the Kivas had collapsed, Pueblo and
other tribes would have visited the site and broken pots
there as a sign of respect and worship.
The pottery shards were littered all around - but we didn't take any as a souvenir as the owner of the pot could haunt you if you do!
|
|||
| This was our first view of a cliff dwelling. It is a single family dwelling built into the natural cavity in the sandstone cliff. These date from 1100 to 1400AD. I think these cliff dwelling are amazing - especially when you consider they only had stone tools. |
 |
||||
 |
Our guide Ricky was great. He is actually a
Cheyenne, but lives at the
Ute Mountain Reservation He told us he
dances at all the festivals e.g. Summer Solstice which
is 4 days of fasting and dancing. Here he is pointing out some petroglyphs drawn on the cliff beside the single family cliff dwelling.
|
||||
|
These are more petroglyphs at Chief Jack's house.
Looks like they used a spray can :-) Chief Jack was the last real tribal leader of the Utes and was the one who finally signed the treaty with the Americans. They now have a council - one of Ricky's brothers is a member.
|
 |
 |
|||
 |
Ricky told us the story of this petroglyph.
The spider of life is on the left, to the right of it is the world that it created. On the other side of the world is mother earth - who shares the responsibility of the world. The small symbol to the right is for fertility and the large butterfly shape is the symbol for rain. Behind Ricky the symbols continue and predict the beginning of the fourth world. They believe the fourth world is the last one we have, and was started when they released the atomic bombs. It's now time for them to warn people that this is the last world. They believe that people are greedy and are robbing mother earth. The Native Americans believe that we need to be more respectful of mother earth, take only what we need and that we should take care to replenish the earth when we can. Seems like a good idea to me. |
||||
| On our way to Lion's Canyon we spotted a dust tornado - look between the two trees that break the horizon. |
 |
||||
 |
This is Fortress House.
Notice the poles coming out of the wall - these are the foundations of the second story and they would have been covered with sticks and mud and used as a sidewalk. Above the dwellings at the top of the Cliff, the ancient Pueblos had built small retention walls and dug niches into the rock and so that they could trap and channel rainwater for use as drinking water. |
||||
|
The ancient Pueblos accessed these sites via niches in the rock and
small ladders.
Luckily they had big sturdy ladders for us to use! Some of these ladders were about 40-50ft in high.
|
 |
 |
|||
 |
 |
This is us at Lion House. Apparently there was a
family of Mountain Lions here when the archeologists first
came.
The sites are still as they have been for centuries as they are considered sacred sites and are not visited or interfered with in any way. The white spots on these pieces of wood is where they were cored to date the dwellings.
|
|||
 |
You can tell which rooms were used as dwellings as the
smoke from their fires have blacked the walls.
Other rooms were used as storage for crops - corn beans
and squash.
The people were only 5ft in height on average, so the ceilings were VERY low. |
||||
|
We then went to Morse 5 House (?). This is a circular ceremonial room called a kiva. They always have six supports (N, S, E, W, up and down). Tree trunks are covered with sticks and then mud to form a slightly domed or flat roof with an access hole. The second picture is a close up of a fire pit and the sipapu (the spirit hole). |
 |
 |
|||
 |
More climbing was required to get to Eagle's Nest.
That's Fergus on the ladder, I'm already up on top. The views from this place along Mancos Canyon were fantastic. |
||||
|
Yes - we DID have to crawl along the edge of the cliff
behind me to get around to those dwellings. It was a
bit hairy and not everyone goes to this one. This site did have one of the best naturally preserved Kivas to be found. If you look closely (click on the right hand image) you can see the walls are covered in mud and painted with designs. |
 |
 |
|||
 |
This is me taking advantage of the shade!
It is actually amazingly cool in the dwellings. They tended to build them so they are shaded all day in summer and exposed to the sun all day in the winter. |
||||
|
Although we were exhausted after the tour, we took a trip to
the Four Corners as we were only twenty miles away. It's the only place where you can 'stand' with each limb in a different State. This is Fergus with his feet in Arizona and New Mexico and his hands in Colorado and Utah. I guess his rear end is in No Mans Land. :-) |
 |
||||
| webmaster@k333.com |
