Mesa Verde National Park, Telluride & 4 Corners - CO, UT, NM, AZ

We traveled about 150 miles from Moab, UT to Mancos, CO where we camped at Mesa Verde RV Resort.  This was a very nice park, reasonable and located 1/2 mile from Mesa Verde NP.  After getting setup we hit the park starting at the highest point in the park, Park Point (8572 elev).  You could see for almost 100 miles from here:

From here we headed down Chapin Mesa park road and stopped at Spruce Tree House.  Mesa Verde NP is the largest archaeological site in the US.  We didn't find much wildlife here but if you're into cliff dwellings, this is the place!  We hiked down to the Spruce Tree House dwelling:

This is the 3rd largest dwelling in the park and does not require you to pay for a guided tour (as the 2 larger ones do):

We decided to check out the hike to the petroglyphs from Spruce Tree.  Great hike that worked it's way up and down along the cliffs with some interesting challenges along the way:

Yes, I was able to squeeze through!

That's right, we laugh at these challenges:

And after 45 mins of grueling hiking in 90 degree weather we come to 4' x 10' panel of petroglyphs:

Translates to "you dumbass hiking here to see this!"

It was a good hike, great views of the canyon along the way too.  Just make sure you bring water!!!  After the hike we checked out the Cliff Palace Loop and the Mesa Top Loop.  There were stops all along the way to view the cliff dwellings across the canyon.  Here's a shot of Cliff palace (the largest dwelling in the park):

These dwellings date back to the 1st century and were inhabited by the native Ute tribe whose ancestors still live on nearby reservations.  Our 2nd day here we hit the Wetherhill Mesa area of the park to do a couple of hikes around the Step House dwelling:

These hikes weren't too strenuous (or interesting) other than seeing & being able to walk through the dwellings.  On the Nodenskiold hike we spotted the only wildlife we saw in the park (small deer) but it took off too quickly to catch a shot.  The trail ended with a view of another dwelling:

The other special thing about this trail was it was decorated every few feet with something that reminded me of a handful of my friends (you know who you are):

This one was hard to miss but it's everywhere on this trail!

We'd had enough of cliff dwellings so we decided to drive out to the Four Corners.  One of the few places in the world where you can say you're in 6 places at once (Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Navajo & Ute nations):

OK, so just to support the prior statement of being in 6 places at once, I contorted my body for this pose:

I make it look much easier than it really was!!!

This whole thing was a little hokey and the ride was boring but once you got there it was kinda cool.  The most fun was watching how other people would pose to have their pictures taken covering the 4 states - pics too racey to post on this blog!

Our last day here we drove the San Juan Skyway scenic drive.  From camp we headed east to Durango (cool little town with steam train ride but we passed on that), then north to Silverton & Ouray.  The ride north on 550 was slow but incredible scenery along the way.  We hit elevations over 11,000 feet on winding roads carved into the mountain side.  We passed the largest herd of sheep we've seen grazing on this trip:

We stopped at several places along to way to check out the scenery and waterfalls including this river which passed through an area where iron ore mining was taking place (hence the colors of the rocks and water):

We also saw people panning for gold in this area.  The drive from Silverton to Ouray was especially scenic with few spots to pull over (so I shot this video while driving):

From Ouray we took 62 west to 145 south into Telluride.  We were immediately welcomed by a herd of elk:

We drove through down town Telluride which was bustling with people and bikers visiting the many shops & restaurants.  On the other end of town we stopped and had lunch by the many waterfalls there:

We then rode bikes to the free gondola ski lift which we took up the mountain:

It was a beautiful day and the views from up top were incredible too:

We didn't realize until we got to the top that we could have brought the bikes with us too.  Looked like fun but may have been a little too challenging?  We did continue to explore the bike trails in and around town:

There were wild flowers growing everywhere along the trail:

Nice trails but they got a little congested with bikes & people closer to town and especially where there was access to the shallow river running along side:

The reason for congestion here is because there were kids young and old riding down the river in tubes and then walking back up the trails (I took this one while riding on the bike so give me a break!):

Later that evening while hanging out at our campsite we watched many hummingbirds enjoying our neighbors feeder:

Mesa Verde NP is a great park to visit if you're into archeology and cliff dwellings.  Mesa Verde RV Resort was a very nice park, great location, well maintained with full hookups, wifi and good DTV reception.  If you're here, go see 4 Corners!  The Telluride trip was an all day drive but it was well worth it.  We wouldn't take our 5th wheel this way but perhaps the reverse direction up to Telluride would be nice to spend more time there.  We've moved on to Santa Fe, New Mexico where we'll scope out down town and take a drive up to Taos.

More to come . . .