Cliff Palace

Cliff Palace is the largest complex of ruins within Mesa Verde National Park. Like most of the other ruins it is accessable only with a ranger guide on tours which take place at prescibed times.

The ruins themselves are very impressive. The village is quite large, with estimates of maybe 200 people living there at wone time.

I liked studying the ruins and seeing the varying styles of architecture and technology which were used over the course of time. One of the amazing points about all of these villages is that the typical lifespan of the inhabitants was very short, maybe about 30 years. The other interesting thing is that these people had no written language to pass along the things that they learned.

Cliff Palace was fairly easy to reach. The trail down was fairly easy, with no really difficult climbs needed to reach it, a real contrast from Balcony House. We did however have to climb three ladders, each about ten feet high, in order to leave. The ladders weren’t too hard to climb, and they weren’t at all frightening, as they were each laid in a crevice in the rock, avoiding the feeling of being up high.

We went on the last tour of the day, 6:00 pm. Although we were a bit hungry, it was worth going at that time, as the light hit the ruins at such an angle that it illuminated them beautifully.