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| Balcony House |
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| Cliff Palace |
Today we are camping at Mesa Verde National Park, we are alone in the section of the campground we are set up in, just us and a small group of mule deer grazing all around us. The park opened up for the season today at noon, there are over 300 campsites, in the winter months only one loop is open.
We have been here before and toured the Cliff Palace dwelling, which is the largest cliff dwelling in the park. We decided to tour the Balcony House today. This is a ranger led tour and is the most challenging cliff dwelling tour, it leads to a smaller dwelling thought to be home to two families It was a very interesting tour, due mostly to the passion of the ranger that was our leader, he was from the area and really had a feel for the ancient people who built and lived in these magnificent houses over 800years ago. The tour started with a 32 foot ladder climbing up a vertical rock cliff than ended with a 12 foot narrow cave and another latter and finally steps carved into the stone face up to the top. The trick was to never look down and it works.
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| Balcony House |
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| Ladder Climb |
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| Getting from room to room was difficult |
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| Moving between rooms |
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| Mesa Verde Overlook |
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| Ladder Climb |
