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Touring Cliff Palace At Mesa Verde National Park

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Published Date

August 6, 2015

Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde National Park/Kurt Repanshek

Enjoy this short video tour of Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde National Park/Kurt Repanshek

While there are about 600 cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, Cliff Palace is the most stunning and significant one of all.

The "palace" is the larget cliff dwelling in all of North America, with rooms, plazas, towers and kivas. Today it's thought the palace was both home to about 100-120 or so people, as well as a public gathering place.

Visitors who take one of the ranger-led tours of Cliff Palace this year will likely hear about some of the preservation work being down on the dwelling, and be able to see some of the efforts, such as a stone buttress below the front wall of the palace.

Back in May, 2011, archeologists discovered extensive cracks, wall deformation, and structural movement in the southern half of Cliff Palace. If you take the tour, or pay close attention to the video, you'll be able to see some of the cracks that need to be addressed. Too, there's a "dry stack" of stones high up in the alcove that preservationists are trying to figure out how best to keep it from collapsing.

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Comments

Submitted by Dennis P. Lima on August 6, 2015 - 1:10pm.

We just visited Mesa Verde and did the Cliff Palace tour this past Independence Day weekend. Our 6 year old son enjoyed it very much. Highly recommended.


Submitted by Tom Lorig on August 6, 2015 - 1:14pm.

What is with the hat that the ranger is wearing? Is it something that has been recently approved to go with the uniform? I was under the impression that for tours such as this one, only the flat hats were approved?


Submitted by Christiane Thaxton on August 6, 2015 - 5:03pm.

When my husband and I visited many years ago we had to use a fallen tree to get to the cliff side.It looks like a lot was rebuilt or added and I do not think that that would be a good thing.It should have stayed as it was discovered.It is a very magic place and now I think it has lost some of the magic because of the alterations.


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