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Cliff dwelling tours to restart at Mesa Verde National Park
Durango, Colorado Currently Thu 4% chance of precipitation 20% chance of precipitation 37% chance of precipitation
Guided trips were suspended in 2020 because of pandemic
Thursday, April 22, 2021 10:43 AM Updated 35 minutes ago Cliff dwelling tours will resume this year at Mesa Verde National Park after being suspended in 2020 because of the pandemic. Courtesy Mesa Verde National Park
Cliff dwelling tours to restart at Mesa Verde National Park Cliff dwelling tours will resume this year at Mesa Verde National Park after being suspended in 2020 because of the pandemic. Courtesy Mesa Verde National Park
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Mesa Verde National Park Becomes Fourth International Dark Sky Park in Colorado
If you want to see the Milky Way from your campsite, Mesa Verde is your spot.Megan Michelson •
April 8, 2021
During a normal summer, Mesa Verde National Park park rangers and staff are busy leading daily guided tours of the signature cliff dwellings and archeological sites built by Ancestral Puebloans. But in 2020, visitation to the national park in southwest Colorado decreased by 50 percent due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With fewer visitors and tours, staff had some time on their hands.
“A silver lining of the pandemic was having time to dedicate to projects on the back burner,” says Spencer Burke, a park ranger at Mesa Verde. “One of those projects was getting certified as an International Dark Sky Park.”
Mar.13.2021
Originally established to conserve and preserve some of the most beautiful and unusual wilderness places in America, the National Park System soon grew to include archaeological and historic sites. The first park to preserve âthe works of men,â as President Theodore Roosevelt put it, was Mesa Verde, established in 1906. Others followed, preserving and showcasing ancient ruins and archaeological sites throughout the country. Most of them are in the Southwest. And for good reason.
People of the Southwest built their homes and cities in stone, carving them in soft sandstone crevices or building structures up to four stories high from clay and mud bricks. In the bone-dry environment of the desert, these ancient structures baked in the sun but stayed preserved. Visible for miles in the wide-open spaces, they were easy to find, and as settlers moved into the area, they started visiting them with no regard to their preservation. Vandalism threatened to destroy stru
The Four Corners
A thousand years ago, this region was the center of an incredibly complex and influential civilization that flourished over several centuries throughout the entire Southwest. The Ancestral Puebloans, along with other tribal groups, occupied this land and inhabited sites such as Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon and Canyon de Chelly. Today, the region is home to the descendants of these tribes, many of whom have a strong connection to these important cultural sites.
From the dry desert ecosystem at Chaco Canyon to the pinyon-juniper woodlands at Mesa Verde, the geographic isolation of these parks offers visitors the ability to get off the beaten path to find solitude away from big crowds.