| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 15 February 2005 |
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) Now, I was
smart on this vacation and packed gloves and an earband. I was also stupid,
because I left them in the room. So we came up with a plan which involved
getting tickets for an afternoon tour, then seeing the museum, then
returning to Cortez to pick up our pictures and warmer clothing. Then we
could return to Mesa Verde and stay until sundown instead of having to be
back before the photo place closed at 5:30 PM.
There are two ranger-guided tours: one to Cliff Palace and one to
Balcony House. In order to manage the crowds, they require tickets and you
can go on only one tour a day. The tickets used to be free, but now cost
US$1 each. This is to make up for budget cuts. Their choices this year
were to charge for tickets or cut their season to Memorial Day to Labor Day.
If they charge more than US$1, they would have to contract the ticket
service out, and end up with less money unless they drastically raised the
price, so this seemed the best solution. The Cliff Palace tour is the
easier, and Cliff Palace is the largest Anasazi ruin discovered, so we
signed up for that (for 2:00 PM). During the summer, they say there is a
long line for tickets even at 8:00 AM when the Visitors Center opens, but
this was not true today. (However, by the time our tour started, they had
sold out all the spots on it I would still advise visitors to get there
early for tickets. They must be purchased in person the day of the tour.)
(By the way, the only way to visit these two ruins is by tour. Spruce
Tree House can be visited on your own; a ranger is there to answer questions
and protect the site. Most of the rest of the ruins--and 571 ruins with
standing walls have been discovered so far--are only viewable from a
distance or completely inaccessible.)
We next drove another five miles to the museum. There were the usual
exhibits about Anasazi culture (including a recipe for 'chewed bread' that
you probably don't want to hear about). In addition, there was a section
talking about how Gustaf Nordenskio 'ld of Sweden first excavated the site in
1891. This was when Finland was still associated with Sweden, and there is
apparently a museum in Finland with some of the best pieces from the site.
In 1991, when Mesa Verde wanted to have a centennial exhibition, the Finnish
museum wouldn't ship them the good items because they said the Mesa Verde
curators didn't use as good techniques in handling or caring for artifacts
as the Finns did. It's interesting to hear of the United States being on
the short end of one of these occasions where artifacts where taken from one
country for a museum in another. (And the Finns were probably right. With
budget squeezes in parks budgets, we probably were at a lower standard
here.)
One interesting aspect of the museum was left over from that
centennial, though: a set of paired photographs with one in each pair taken
in 1891 and then one taken in 1991 from the same spot. Not much had
changed. In fact, in one spot, you could see the same dead tree!
As we were getting walking around, one of the rangers (who happened to
be an Indian) said to another of the weather outside, 'It better clear for
my tour.' Mark commented to me, 'This sounds like someone who hasn't
learned to live in harmony with nature.' Mark later asked him about this,
and the ranger said, 'I have to live in harmony with nature, but nature also
has to live in harmony with me.' Of course the trick is getting nature to
do that.
The museum also talked about foods originating in the New World, so I
will insert the trivia fact that there are only six food plants originating
in *North* America: the pecan, the blueberry, the cranberry, the Jerusalem
artichoke, the maple (maple sugar), and the black walnut. Everything else
is from Central or South America.
At 9:15 AM the weather had cleared a bit, so we decided to walk down to
Spruce Tree House before going back to Cortez. As usual, the pamphlet (the
usual US$0.25) spends a lot of time pointing out vegetation and geology--
interesting, but not what most people come to Mesa Verde for. The pamphlet
also points out that since it National Park Service policy to stabilize or
reinforce rather than to rebuild, almost all of what you see is original.
(Later we saw something that seemed to be contrary to this, but I'll talk
about that then.)
At 10:15 AM, we headed back to Cortez. On the way back, we again drove
through fog (which is even worse when you're going *down* curvy mountain
roads than when you're going up), and more rain. On the way down we passed
someone hitching a ride. Now normally we wouldn't stop for a hitchhiker,
but it was such miserable weather, and he was carrying some sort of auto
part, and he did look like a German tourist, and we were in a National Park,
so we stopped for him. In fact, he *was* a German tourist. He and a friend
had been attending school in Virginia and when the school year was over they
took their US$500 Volkswagen bug and started to tour the country. Their
clutch cable broke, and he had found an auto parts place in Cortez that had
a replacement, so we said we could take him there instead of just to the
main highway.
But first we got our pictures (which was on the way), and they had all
come out, which was a great relief. Then we dropped our German friend at
his auto parts store (which was a block from our motel), then got gloves,
etc., from the motel. We stopped at a supermarket, picked up a few things,
and then while Mark paid I called ahead to Kanab to make reservations for
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We then returned to Mesa Verde and, although
it had been sunny and warm in Cortez, it was still foggy and cold in Mesa
Verde.
Or at least in parts of it. These must be what they refer to as
'microclimates,' since as we went from place to place on the mesa, it went
from rain to sun and back to rain again.
Pamphlet in hand, we started the driving tour of the Mesa Top Ruins at
12:30 PM and managed to get to the first seven stops in the hour before
having to leave for our Cliff Palace tour. The sites were generally of
pueblo ruins, with one or two scenic views thrown in. The seventh site
included the ruins of three pueblos which occupied the site at different
times. The ruins included walls of a kiva of the third pueblo which
intersected walls of kivas from the first and second pueblos. Now, when
they were building the third kiva, one would expect that they would tear
down the walls of the first two rather than have them run right through the
interior of the kiva. This is the site where their claim not to rebuild
seems least credible.
Although the Visitors Center is at 8040 feet (2452 meters), the Cliff
Palace Ruin (also called Cliff House Ruin) is at about 7000 feet (2130
meters). As a result it was actually warmer here than at the Visitors
Center, but I'm still glad I had the gloves. (By the way, it *is* possible
to type on an HP 100LX palmtop PC with gloves on.)
This tour involved going down some steps and then up a ladder to get to
the ruin. (Balcony House required two ladders, or at least more ladder
rungs total, and a crawl on your hands and knees through a narrow tunnel.
Contrary to the ranger's humorous description at the Visitors Center, it
does *not* involve swinging on a rope over a chasm.) The ranger guiding this
tour spent most of the hour talking about the people who lived here rather
than the structures themselves, which were described fairly thoroughly in
the pamphlet anyway.
After the tour was over, we spent a bit more time talking to the ranger
about Mesa Verde and National Parks and Monuments in general. There is a
policy now to try to get more Indians working at the various ruins sites,
and there were four at Mesa Verde, including our ranger. However, she
mentioned she was from the plains, so I have to wonder if it really is that
much better to have someone from a Plains tribe at Mesa Verde rather than a
non-Indian. Would an Inuit do just as well?
We also talked a bit about the philosophy behind the Parks and
Monuments. There are multiple, often conflicting, goals. First is
preservation. But there is also the goal of having people see the ruins, or
the scenery, or whatever, both for its own sake, and also because the
National Park Service is more likely to get funding if people can 'see their
tax dollars at work.' As it is, funding is tight. As I noted, they had to
start charging for tours, and the rangers' quarters were so awful that when
someone came to inspect them because of the recent Hanta virus outbreak,
they were all condemned. It doesn't seem as if things will be getting much
better either.
We then finished the Mesa Top Ruins loop, taking about another hour for
the second part. Several of the stops towards the end of the loop are to
view ruins across the canyon, which often blended in so well with the cliff
face that Mark described this part as the 'Where's Waldo?' tour.
By the way, Mesa Verde is on the Internet, at
Superintendent@MesaVerde.org, or at their URL http://MesaVerde.Org.
We left Mesa Verde at 5:45 PM, still driving through fog and getting
sunshine as soon as we left the Park. Dinner was at Little Germany in
Dolores, and neither of us liked it very much. German food tends toward the
heavy and greasy (almost everything is red meat), and we're used to lighter
fare. But Mark thought I wanted it, and I thought he wanted it. As someone
said, 'What we have here is a failure to communicate.'
Minimum elevation: 6198 ft (1889 m).
Maximum elevation: 8040 ft (2452 m).
Distance driven: 93 miles (150 kilometers).
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Most people might not feel that Canyon de Chelly
National Monument was actually a day trip from Cortez, but there is not much
cheap accommodation any closer to it. (For that matter, most people
wouldn't think Monument Valley was a day trip from Flagstaff, and we did
that last time we were here.) Motels in Chinle, right outside the Monument,
are US$70 and above per night. Since it was 134 miles (216 kilometers) from
Cortez to Chinle over straight roads, we figured it would take about two
hours each way, giving us a full day there. It actually took about two and
a half, with a few towns slowing us down a bit.
We left Cortez at 7:00 AM and traveled south on Route 160 and then on
Route 191. As I mentioned at the start of this log, Route 160 goes right
past the Four Corners Monument, which has turned into a tourist attraction
of the same sort as 'Hole in the Rock,' charging an admission fee and
selling souvenirs It's a totally artificial point, being determined strictly
by the fact that someone decided to draw the borders there. But it's even
sillier than that. This spot is completely contained with the Navajo
Reservation (which extends into all four states there for a non-trivial
distance). The Navajo Reservation is also the Navajo Nation, which is
theoretically a sovereign nation. So the states don't even extend to this
point; it's really the point where the boundaries *if extended in straight
lines* would meet. So what we have here is a theoretical artificial point.
The monument is managed by the Navajo, who are known for their wry humor,
and I can see why.
This of course leads nicely into the whole question of whether the
Navajo Nation really is a sovereign nation and what that means. In its
treaty of 1868 with the Navajo, the United States referred to the treaty as
being between two nations. |
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| Copyright © - "Evelyn C. Leeper" |
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