Cliff dwellings inspire awe century after discovery

Mesa Verde National Park in the four corners area of Colorado preserves native people's architectural wonders

Most national parks protect natural wonders -- mountains, forests, canyons.

But Mesa Verde was the very first national park created to preserve man-made wonders -- cliff dwellings, made centuries ago from sandstone, perched on ledges at elevations of 7,000 feet.

This intricate architecture, dating to the 12th century, is as awesome to behold today as it was when cowboys and ranchers first saw it. Two men looking for lost cattle, Richard Wetherill and Charles Mason, came upon the most spectacular site, the 150-room Cliff Palace, in 1888.

Mesa Verde National Park was established 18 years later, in 1906. The park's centennial is being observed this year with festivals, lectures and access to sites that have been closed to the public for decades.

"It's not just a birthday party to commemorate 100 years in June 2006," said Tessy Shirakawa, chief of visitor services for the park. "It is a yearlong celebration about the last 100 years, and looking into the future to the next 100 years."

A four-day party, free to the public, with a birthday cake, music, Indian dances, a traders' festival, craft demonstrations and other events is scheduled for June 29 through July 2. Other highlights of the centennial include monthly lectures and demonstrations; daylong horseback rides in September to Spring House, which has been closed since the 1960s; and ranger-led hikes to two other dwellings. One of these, Mug House, has never been open to the public before, and another, Oak Tree House, has been closed since the 1930s.

Other events are scheduled in communities around the region; for advance reservations and a complete schedule, visit www.mesaverde2006.org. The celebration ends Dec. 9 with a "luminaria" -- nighttime illumination -- of Cliff Palace and Spruce Tree House, another dwelling.

The cliff dwellings were built by a group of people whom archaeologists refer to as Ancestral Puebloans. They lived in the area from about 400 A.D. to 1300 A.D. Their descendants include 21 contemporary tribes.

"They were incredible masons," said Ranger Kimberly Accardy on a tour of Cliff Palace, the largest of the park's 600 dwellings. "They did not have metal. All their tools were made out of wood, stone or bone." Bricks for the buildings were made from sandstone mixed with mud mortar.

Accardy said Cliff Palace was probably "a community center for trade, commerce or special ceremonies. Only 125 people lived here, but many more people came here. It's a bit like the idea of people living on the outskirts of a major metropolitan area and coming into the central area to take care of their needs."

Cliff Palace's 150 rooms include walls up to four stories high, nine storage rooms on an upper ledge, and 21 "kivas," deep round pits used for ceremonies and other community activities. Kivas are still used by modern-day Hopis and other tribes.

The Puebloans hunted wild game, domesticated turkeys, and grew corn, squash and beans. For water, Accardy said, "they relied on rain and snow-melt, and a lot of the alcoves had seep springs" -- water that trickled in through the canyon walls.

The park is also a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Steep climbs

Most first-time visitors to Mesa Verde -- which is Spanish for "green table" -- tour Cliff Palace. But adventurous types -- including sure-footed children -- will also want to see Balcony House, which can only be accessed by climbing steep ladders and shimmying through an 18-inch-wide stone tunnel.

Balcony House is much smaller than Cliff Palace, but its highlights include interesting archaeological evidence.