September 2: Out on a Ledge

No one told us to, we just decided on our own to take a hike.  A trail leads around Spruce Canyon

to the only remaining major petroglyph panel on Mesa Verde.  (There was another one on Battleship Rock, but it has been damaged by the 1996 Chapin 5 fire and the slurry used to stop it.)

Our trail was not the one at the bottom of the canyon, but one that you cannot see on the side of the canyon below the top.

It went round and round, up and down.  We even had to squeeze through tight places.

One unexpected reward were some ruins that we almost missed because they were on a ledge above us.

We climbed up

and once again came face to face with a quiet place that was some family's home or workplace long ago.

The room foundations were still in place,

as were metates and granaries.

A large stone showed the marks of years of sharpening stone tools.

The petroglyph panel was small by the standard of previous sites we have seen,

but it was fun getting there.  Notice the hand images and lizard people--typical Anasazi images.  Is one of the anthropomorphs playing Simon Says?

We also visited sites on top of the Mesa and some overlooks at cliff dwellings that are inaccessible to the public.

One of our favorites was "Square Tower House."

It is a bit smaller than Spruce Tree House,

but it still has 70 rooms and 7 kivas.  What we liked about it was the sense of design.  It seemed to epitomize the geometric sophistication of the masons.  Squares and circles are beautifully combined, as is the balance of  of upward and downward space.

Surely there must have been an Anasazi Frank Lloyd Wright as architect.  It even illustrates Wright's principle of harmonizing architectural form and landscape into its design.  The kiva incorporates the boulders of the alcove into its sacred space,

as do the walls and floors of the tower and surrounding rooms.

Well done.  If only European castle builders had been so imaginative.