Green Table

Mesa Verde. Green table.

For some reason, hundreds of years ago, people decided to live way up in the air, clinging to the sides of cliffs. They grew crops on the flat tops of the hills – on the “green tables” – and spent the rest of their lives sheltered in the cliffside. I just can’t imagine scaling up those canyon walls every day to check on the corn.

So there we were, up at 8,000 feet looking at the “Spruce House” and the “Cliff Palace” and the “Square Tower” – in fact, over 600 cliff dwellings are preserved at Mesa Verde National Park. The closer you look at a cliff side, suddenly the dwellings pop out at you like one of those Magic Eye drawings. After awhile every hole in every cliff starts to look like a little window to a stone house.

We started to wonder why these people were up in the cliffside to begin with? Directly to the west of the area is a large desert plateau and the San Juan river flows beautifully through it. You would think it would be easier to grow crops there, and live on the ground. Maybe they were the adventurous type. Maybe they were the ancestors of the rock climbing gym dwellers of today. Maybe they liked the view.

All joking aside, if you have the chance to come here (southern Colorado) definitely see this place – it’s absolutely amazing.