Mesa Verde Camping

It’s rare for us to have a camping trip with WiFi, so I thought I’d take advantage of the luxury to put up a quick blog post about our trip to Mesa Verde (still ongoing). So, the post will be pretty short on prose in favor or pics.

We left the front range after work and B’s soccer and a quick Chipotle dinner at around 7:30. Since it’s about 7 hours of driving to Mesa Verde we arrived around 2:30 in the morning. I think everyone was more than ready to climb into the tent which is precisely what we did as soon as I got everything setup.

Saturday morning we slept in a bit, made a yummy pancake breakfast (with sausage), and made our way back down to the visitor’s center to buy a new park pass and get tickets for one of the guided cliff-dwelling tours. The kiddos enjoyed learning about nature and making beaded necklaces and bracelets with some CU students while I waited in line for tickets. One of the dwellings (the Spruce Treehouse) is currently closed due to some recent rockfall, so that left just 3 options. While waiting in line, one of the volunteers gave a short description of the options and it was clear that the more adventurous Balcony House tour was perfect with its 32’ ladder and tunnel, so I got us tickets for the 5 o’clock tour.

Here’s a cactus we saw n the hike into Balcony House.

This is the big 32’ ladder you have to climb to get into the cliff dwelling. I was climbing behind Benjamin and both trying to keep up with a carefree 5-year old while simultaneously staying ready to catch said 5-yera old and maintain a sufficient grip to keep dad and son from falling. Needless to say I was happy to reach the top safely! Unfortunately I couldn’t get pics of the kiddos on the big ladder. They weren’t the least bit scared and thought it was great.

Here’s the first set of rooms you see after topping out from the ladder climb and the namesake feature for the site.

Benjamin really wanted to climb into the kiva. He asked some questions too like how did they get down there?

He’s such a cutie and a ham when he wants to be.

Here’s a smaller ladder at the exit. This time Jess was following B and came to fully understand just how terrifying that is. Again the kiddos both thought it was fun and easy which was not true of the other adults on the tour either!

Here’s Phoebe approaching the tunnel exit. I think the kiddos are ready for some caving.

Here’s a parting shot of the big ladder from the plaza of the Balcony House. This gives you a good feel for the exposure.

That pretty much wraps up day 1 at Mesa Verde. Everyone had a blast and we hope you enjoy the photos.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply