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Mesa Verde National Park.
Near Cortez, Colorado.
Hikes, Travels, & Tours
Pictures, Photos, Images, & Reviews.

October 07, 2011

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Cliff  Palace. Mesa Verde National Park. Near Cortez, Colorado. Hikes, Travels, & Tours. Photos, Pictures, Images, & Reviews.
Cliff Palace. Mesa Verde National Park. Near Cortez, Colorado.
Courtesy: NPS.

Google Map To Mesa Verde National Park. Visitor Center, Near Cortez, Colorado.


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Mesa Verde National Park:

We wish to thank Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for some of the images and information on this page. We share information with Wikipedia.

Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table, offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300.

Today, the Mesa Verde National Park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States.

History Of The Mesa Verde People:

Archaeologists Say The Following:


The first people in the San Juan Basin were hunter-gatherers: the Archaic. These small bands descended from nomadic Clovis big-game hunters who arrived in the Southwest in about 10,000 BC.

By about 900 BC, Archaic people lived at Atlatl Cave and similar sites.

By about AD 850, the Ancient Pueblo population�the "Anasazi", from a Ute term adopted by the Navajo denoting the "ancient ones" or "enemy ancestors"�had rapidly expanded across the San Juan Basin.

Mesa Verde features numerous ruins of homes and villages built by these Ancestral Puebloan people, sometimes called the Anasazi.

The Anasazi inhabited Mesa Verde anywhere between 550 to 1300 AD. These people were mainly subsistence farmers; they grew crops on nearby mesas. Their primary crop was corn, which was also was the major part of their diet. Men were also hunters which further increased their food supply. The women of the Anasazi were famous for the elegant basket weaving. Anasazi pottery is just as famous as their baskets; their artifacts, even today, are highly prized. Since the Anasazi kept no written records, their artifacts are the only link to understanding their interesting culture.

By 750 AD, the people were building mesa-top villages made of adobe. By the late 12th century they began to build the cliff dwellings for which Mesa Verde is famous.

Mesa Verde is best known for cliff dwellings, which are structures built within caves and under outcropping in cliffs � including Cliff Palace, which is thought to be the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The Spanish term Mesa Verde translates into English as "green table." Approximately 600 of the over 4700 archeological sites found in Mesa Verde National Park are cliff dwellings.[

The cohesive Mesa Verde system began unravelling in about AD 1140, perhaps triggered by an extreme 50-year drought that began in about AD 1130. This chronic climatic instability, including a series of severe droughts, again struck the region between about AD 1250 to AD 1450.


Mesa Verde National Park Is Open Daily - Year Round!.

However, their hours and programs are constantly changing so you need to contact them for specific hours.

Phone: Visitor Information - 970-529-4465

When entering the park we suggest that visitors first stop at the visitor center to receive brochures, trail maps, and current park information.

We also suggest checking for more information, that is constantly updated, at the Mesa Verde National Park link, at the bottom of this page.


Mesa Verde National Park
PO Box 8
Mesa Verde, CO 81330-0008

How To Get There:



From Cortez, drive one hour east on Highway 160 to the Mesa Verde National Park entrance. From Durango, it's a 1.5 hour drive west on Highway 160.


If you are planning to visit Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. And if you are coming from outside of Colorado, you could fly into Denver International Airport (IATA: DEN, ICAO: KDEN, FAA LID: DEN), often referred to as DIA, is an airport in Denver, Colorado, and then rent a car.


There are many hotels and motels in New Mexico and Colorado, and if you need a place to stay; Priceline.com can arrange that for you.

We have personally, booked flights, hotels, and vacations; through Priceline.com and we can highly recommend them. Their website is also easy to use!

We have some links to Priceline.com on this page since they can arrange all of your air flights, hotels and car.

We of course, appreciate your use of the advertising on our pages, since it helps us to keep our pages active.

Whenever you make a purchase from a link on our page we get credit for that transaction. Again, Thanks!

Cliff  Palace. Mesa Verde National Park. Near Cortez, Colorado. Hikes, Travels, & Tours. Photos, Pictures, Images, & Reviews.
Cliff Palace. Mesa Verde National Park. Near Cortez, Colorado.
Courtesy: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Cliff  Palace. Mesa Verde National Park. Colorado. Hikes, Travels, & Tours. Photos, Pictures, Images, & Reviews.Balcony House. Mesa Verde National Park. Colorado. Hikes, Travels, & Tours. Photos, Pictures, Images,& Reviews.
Cliff Palace
Mesa Verde National Park
Courtesy: NPS.
Balcony House
Mesa Verde National Park
Courtesy: NPS.
Spruce Tree House. Mesa Verde National Park. Colorado. Hikes, Travels, & Tours. Photos, Pictures, Images, & Reviews.Square Tower House. Mesa Verde National Park. Colorado. Hikes, Travels, & Tours. Photos, Pictures, Images,& Reviews.
Spruce Tree House
Mesa Verde National Park
Courtesy: NPS.
Square Tower House
Mesa Verde National Park
Courtesy: NPS.

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