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Mesa Verde
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Mesa Verde
SPRUCE TREE HOUSE WAS AMLY PROTECTED FROM THE HEAVY WINTER SNOWS
THE STORY OF THE MESAS
 NAVAJO INDIANS CONSTITUTE THE BULK OF THE PARK'S LABORING FORCES. AT THE EVENING CAMP FIRE THEY GIVE THEIR YEBECHAI DANCE |
THOSE who have traveled through our Southwestern States have seen from the car windows innumerable mesas or isolated plateaus rising abruptly for hundreds of feet from the bare and often arid plains. The word "mesa" is Spanish for table. Once the level of these mesa tops was the level of all of this vast southwestern country, but the rains and floods of centuries have washed away the softer earths down to its present level, leaving standing only the rocky spots or those so covered with surface rocks that the rains could not reach the softer strata under neath.
The Mesa Verde (called verde or green because of the heavy forest cover) is one of the great mesas, being approximately fifteen miles long and eight miles wide, and perhaps the most widely known in the Southwest. The surface of this great tableland, rising abruptly one thousand to two thousand five hundred feet above the surrounding valleys, is gashed by a great series of precipitous canyons, and in the great caves in the sheer canyon walls the ruins of the ancient cliff dwellers are found. The most important ruins are located in Rock, Long, Wickiup, Navajo, Spruce, Soda, Moccasin, and tributary canyons.
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Last Modified: Mon, Oct 31, 2002 10:00:00 pm PDT
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