When you think you've arrived at the park, you actually haven't. Well, you've arrived at its outskirts but you must drive a good 20 miles into the heart of the park to see anything of ancient historical note. That's not to say the early part of the park isn't memorable. The road rises steeply through barren swipes in the rocky mountainside. I had to stop at multiple points along the way to take it all in. For the vast, vast majority of the ride in, I was completely alone on the mountains. There wasn't a car in sight. This adds to the eeriness. This was the case for much of the rest of my time in the park as well.
About ten miles in, you pass through a tunnel. No big deal, I thought at first. Then you realize there are no lights in the tunnel. All the tunnels I've driven through on the East Coast and in the Mid-Atlantic had lights. This one didn't. It was a little freaky.
A lot of the park shuts down in the winter and access to many of the trails is limited. The Mesa Top Loop, however, is still open to cars and gives a nice, multi-stop primer in ancient Puebloan life. First, you get views of a giant burnt red canyon that empties into the distance. Then you drive a few thousand feet to the next stop and get to take a short trail to the canyon-edge. Deep below fortified in a corner of the canyon is a the Square Tower House. A sign on the ledge indicates that almost a thousand years ago it had over 80 rooms. They must have been small.
At the next couple of stops on the six mile loop, I got out of my car only to enter small warehouses built around pithouse remnants. As these were basically just holes in the ground, I wasn't terribly impressed. I found the cliff dwellings to be far more imaginative and impressive.
Hurrying along now because the sun was beginning to set and I wasn't particularly keen on taking the swervy road high above the ground in the dark, I continued on to the next set of stops. Jackpot! The next four stops offered look-outs into a wide canyon. This was the main event of cliff dwellings-gazing. From multiple vantages you can see aptly named structures such as the Sunset House and Cliff Palace. It's strangely wonderful to think that for hundreds of years people lived there on the literal side of a canyon. It must have been a simple life.
Still today life in these parts seems simpler. As I was leaving the park, I stopped at one last vantage point to look out over the darkening lands below and the sun sinking beneath the opposite horizon but not without blasting forth a final throes of radiation. A middle-aged man bundled in a parka and Peruvian hat was there with a small telescope. He explained he was waiting for the moon to raise over the silver mountains miles in the distance. He said he did it every month for the full moon, which happened to be that Sunday night.
We chatted for a few moments then I turned to leave. That was the exact moment he said, "There it is." I turned to look and seeping over the mountains was a glowing, milky curvature--the moon. It was one of the most awesome sights of perhaps ever. I could see it rise. An orb that first balanced on the mountaintops like a golfball does on a tee before starting to hover, low at first, then higher and higher and higher.
The man with the telescope said he lived in the valley below. I asked him if the park closed at sunset. No, he said, pausing for a moment before adding that the rangers would probably come by and check in on what you're doing if it got too late. He let me look through the telescope. Aided by the lens, I could see the terrain of the moon. Concentric spirals covered the moon's surface, strange craters no doubt. It was an indelible spectacle: a full moon rising over the mountains at Mesa Verde. A lunar dispatch indeed.
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