Saturday, July 25, 2015

What a difference a crowd makes


The famous Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park.
We went to Mesa Verde today, a massive national park in the southwestern corner of Colorado. It has more than 4,500 archeological sites, 400 of which are cliff dwellings, where the ancestors of the Pueblo Indians lived. The Anasazi.

Meh.

As big and intense as this park is, so are the crowds. Dozens and dozens of people milling about in orchestrated attendance. Old women like me complaining about their aches and pains, children eating candy and hopping around walls, Bubba-types with barrel chests pounding their way forward. Yes, chewing bits of hay.

Usually I love being in intense crowds. But Wednesday's experience at less well known  parks spoiled me.

Painted Hand. We hiked a circuitous mile to find this in the Canyons of the Ancients.
 Wednesday, Allen and I hiked ALL BY OURSELVES through the Canyons of the Ancients, across a rock mesa and discovered Painted Hand, a cliff dwelling hanging onto the side of a mountain. It was magical. I felt the heat of the sun. Listened to the birds. Imagined children at play, chasing turkeys and dogs. Men chopping away at the hardened earth to plant corn, squash, beans. Women, skinning a freshly caught deer, preserving the hides and bones for utilitarian purposes.

We strolled around and in and out another dwelling,  called Lowry, preserved and protected but not fenced off. We walked where the ancients walked.

At Hovenweep, a national park like Mesa Verde, but on a much smaller scale, Allen and I explored alone as well. We stood at the edge of a canyon  and surveyed the cliff dwellings, pondering in peace why these people moved into the mountainsides.  No one knows why.

Like I said, magical.

One of the ruins at Hovenweep National Park.
Today, I imagined nothing. And I walked in waves of crowds.  I caught a glimpse at the famous Cliff Palace  (see my selfie!), but I had to keep trading places with the crowds to be respectful.

We didn't even go into the museum to see the 25 minute film about the park. And I LOVE THOSE FILMS. But the crowds were daunting. We drove in. Then drove out.

Oh, I am GLAD YES GLAD lots of people love the national parks like I do. I just wish they'd show their love on different days.

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