(19) Mesa Verde NP, Colorado

Situated in the southern part of Colorado, Mesa Verde NP allowed us to take a look at life in pre-Columbian America. Visible below is a huge mesa, that is a mountain with a flat top like a table.

The mountains offered shelter to an ancient people whom archeologists call Anasazi, which in Navajo means "the ancient foreigners". The Anasazi were originally located in the Four Corners region (next on the blog) and chose Mesa Verde for their home about 1,400 years ago, that is approximately in the year 600. Below is the picture of the largest village in Mesa Verde called Spruce Tree House:

The Anasazi lived in the area for about 700 years before they moved away in late 12 century. During the seven centuries of their Mesa Verde settlement they built communities sheltered in the stone caves of the mountains. As visible above, the Anasazi used nature to their advantage, building their dwellings under the overhanging cliffs that protected them from snow and rain and, most probably, from unexpected visitors, either human or predatory;)
Judging by the intricate alleys built for contemporary visitors, prospective ancient attackers must have found it difficult to get to the Anasazi dwelling place:

Well, if those aggressors managed to get down the cliff, they most probably died of poisoning, killed by local plants which may have served as natural "barbed wire";)

The Anasazi, ancient as they were, certainly mastered the art of architecture, which is evidenced by the remnants of their dwelling places made of sandstone. I couldn't help wondering how the hell they built such multilevel houses when they were literally hanging from the cliff...

I also had a chance to get down into a room which looked like a private family bedroom:

When I looked at the sunlit ancient blocks of flats, I concluded that the Anasazi must have spent a lot of time outside their dark alcoves in the warm sun in the open yard.

This well-shaped chamber cut in the rock may have served as a local center for religious rites and social gatherings. The hole in the middle may have been a fireplace...

Mesa Verde NP, which was created in 1906, is a surprisingly big plateau: over 30 km long and about 25 km wide. The impressive mesas are separated by deep canyons (click on the picture, it grows):

Another Anasazi dwelling - there are 600 cliff dwellings in the park, which means that quite a few Ancestral Puebloans, as they are now called, must have lived in the area. (Click on the picture to see more details)

The Anasazi were agricultural people: they hunted game on the mesa tops and grew crops there. Well, in order to function in this culture you had to be very fit: imagine a husband climbing to work in the field in the morning;)

Another Anasazi cliff dwelling:

Driving across a mesa: the trees destroyed by a fire add to the gloomy atmosphere of this long-dead settlement.

The legend below introduces tourists to the arcana of Anasazi sacral architecture (clicking on the picture might help):

A glimpse into the Sun Temple's interior:

One final shot of an amazing Anasazi village before we leave this peaceful area which was once home to a flourishing native American people (click on the picture if you want):

(18) Grand Teton NP; On the Road to Denver, Co; The Rocky Mountains

From Yellowstone I traveled south to Jackson Hole, which is a valley neighboring with the high Teton Mountains, hence the name of the park: Grand Teton NP. The area between Yellowstone and Grand Teton was donated to the Park by the Rockefeller family in 1950 (about 13 thousand hectares), so the picturesque 132-kilometer-long corridor of forests was named John D. Rockefeller Jr Memorial Parkway. Visible from a distance in the picture below are three granite towers: Grand Teton, Middle Teton and South Teton:

Grand Teton peaks are situated over huge Jackson Lake, which is the biggest of the many glacier lakes in the Park:

The upper sections of Grand Teton towers are covered with snow and ice, hence their blue-grey color. Those mountains are among the youngest ranges in the Rocky Mountains - they are about 20 million years younger than the Alps. Below them you can see the water of the Snake River (click on the picture and it grows):

The view of the valley was shot from Signal Mountain, which is situated on the other side of Jackson Lake and offers a vantage point from which to view both Grand Teton (the picture above) and the huge valleys lying to the south-east of the mountain.

Another view from Signal Mountain over the huge valley and the Snake River:

From Grand Teton NP we traveled south-east to Lander, where we spent the night. In the evening we had a substantial dinner in a local pizza restaurant and watched Michael Phelps win his seventh gold medal in swimming. When we left Lander on the next morning, the clouds looked ominous, as you can see in the picture below, and a storm seemed inevitable:

"The cloud stoops to kiss the mountain" was my diary caption for the view below. The atmosphere in the Rocky Mountains was very different from that offered by the Sierra Nevada:

Because the Rockies are so huge, a tourist relishes in admiring very diversified landscapes. The picture below was taken already in Colorado. The sunny weather promised a nice afternoon in Denver:

Unfortunately, Denver did not welcome us with sunny weather. Maybe because the city's elevation is about a mile above sea level and because it is situated practically on the borderline of the Rocky Mountains, it was cold, rainy and cloudy:

Since the weather was so unfriendly to tourists, I did not take many pictures of the city, only a snapshot or two of the City Center, which did not strike me as particularly original. Colorado advertises itself as a "colorful" state but I found the slogan misleading:

On the next morning, after we said goodbye to S, we continued our journey through the Rockies south to Cortez, which meant that we would have to cover a distance of about 690 km. In the picture below snow-covered peaks are shining far away:

The Rockies offered us an extreme experience of driving in a snowstorm in August. The flashes of lightning, the hail as big as rubble which bombarded the roof of the car, the slippery road which made it impossible to move faster than 10 miles per hour - all this made our trip in the Rockies quite dangerous and exciting (well, it actually felt exciting only after we got out of the sleet):

Such surprises caused by the weather are common in the Mountains; below you can see a ramp for trucks which get caught in snowstorms - it helps truck drivers stop the vehicle when brakes don't work on the slippery road:The Rockies are fairy mountains indeed. The picture shows the mountains after the storm: the water evaporates quickly and the steam looks like smoke from a fire:

Another snapshot of the Mountains after the rain - eerie:

Believe it or not, but the river visible below is the famous Rio Grande, the fourth largest river in the U.S. and a natural border between the U.S. and Mexico (known as the Rio Bravo there). Here it is still small, because the picture was taken very close to the River's spring, when we crossed the Rio Grande in Colorado, driving west along route 160. From here it took us a couple of hours to get to Mesa Verde NP, which will come next on the blog.

(17) Yellowstone NP, Wyoming (Part II)

One of the most famous views of Yellowstone is Old Faithful. The name of the geyser suggests that it is very reliable: it allows tourists to admire its spectacular eruptions every 90 minutes or so (S):

Old Faithful shoots boiling water to a height of about 45m. The eruption that I saw lasted about 2.5 minutes (S):

One more snapshot of Old Faithful's spectacular activity (S):

Midway Geyser Basin area is particularly interesting as it contains two largest hot springs, Excelsior Geyser and the unforgettable Grand Prismatic Spring. Below is the picture of a map of the area:

The steaming earth on the way to the hot springs promises a hellish spectacle. In my diary I labeled this view as an "angry earth";)

Walking on the ridge of Excelsior Geyser Crater felt like walking on the edge of the pit of hell. The last eruptions of this geyser were recorded at the end of the 19h century (there was also one in 1985, but it was totally unpredicted and isolated), but the steam and the noise produced by this once largest geyser in the world provide enough horror and excitement. No wonder Rudyard Kipling called the area "Hell's Half Acre" when he visited the Park in 1889 (S):

The water in the hot springs contains elements and mineral particles which add color to it. The yellow-green belts might as well be algae; however, I preferred to continue associating everything with hell, so for me they meant "sulfur";):

The hot water flowing from hot springs into the Firehole River makes it inaccessible to potential swimmers (though the temperature of the river's water must be inviting;)(S):

Finally, I'm approaching Grand Prismatic Spring. The legend contains all the necessary information:

Because of the size of the Spring, the pictures capture only fragments of the spectacular steaming lake. I loved the contrast between the oranges of the ridge and the turquoise water visible below the steam:

Another snapshot of Grand Prismatic Spring captures the richness of its colors. Mind you, the day was rather overcast, so I could only try to imagine what it would look like in the sun:

And, finally, a sort of panoramic view of the Spring's section - to give you an idea of its huge size (S):

Below is what I would have seen if I had flown in an aeroplane or a helicopter (not that I saw any hovering above) over Grand Prismatic Spring on a sunny day:

Yellowstone is not always so colorful: sometimes the area is grey and desolate, as if something poisonous contaminated the earth and killed all life here:

The cadaverous yellowish color of the water in the spring below may provide an answer:

On the second day of my peregrination through Yellowstone I traveled north to visit the area known as Mammoth Hot Springs. The map below explains that the springs are called "mammoth" because of their size and shapes:

Here is a picture of the most spectacular Mammoth Hot Spring, where the water trickles lazily, but the effect is that of the proverbial still waters that run deep:

Mammoth Hot Spring in close-up. I had to touch the water: it felt warm and didn't burn my hands but I didn't dare to taste it, though the view suggests it must contain a lot of minerals;)

Below Mammoth Hot Spring. Lucky me I didn't taste the water - look what it has done to the trees;) I have a sneaking suspicion though that the trees have not decayed because of some poison contained in the water (like in Poe's pond surrounding the House of Usher) but because the minerals created a crust which prevents water from soaking in the ground. The resulting landscape would fit a fairy-tale world:

The variety of views that Yellowstone offers reminds me of Death Valley, where a kaleidoscope of changing landscapes has a dazzling effect on a traveler:

A panoramic view of northern Yellowstone's beautiful meadows (S):

The picture below shows a very characteristic feature of Yellowstone: every now and then travelers can admire contrasts between the skeletons of burnt trees and the fresh green grass and new little trees, which will provide shelter for the Park's animals. Wildfires are a necessary element of Yellowstone's ecosystem not only because they burn old trees and allow new life to bud in the sunlit areas. Fire is also necessary for lodgepole pine trees to exist: it takes about 25 seconds for a tree to burn down and cones have to open within those precious 25 seconds and release the seeds. Well, timing is very important in nature;) (S):

The area visible in the picture below won't see fire for the next 50 years or so - it was probably burnt in the recent fires of 2001 or 2002. The average area destroyed by wildfires (that is those started by lightnings) amounts to a few hundred hectares. In 1988 massive wildfires, known as the Great Fires of 1988, swept through Yellowstone but - contrary to what some feared - the park began to renew itself very quickly. This view is then not sad but promising (S):