Cliff Palace
Saturday, June 12, 2010 by Amy
An overlook of Cliff Palace. It's so huge that you can't get super-good pictures up close:
The girls both wanted to pose for pictures on the fence. Don't know why, but I'm always happy to oblige! We were on the way to meet the ranger for the tour.
Ha! Got a picture without any people in it! Score!:
The girls needed some sort of covering for their heads, it was so hot. Sun hats were super-expensive at the gift shop so they both got bandanas. They loved them!
Listening intently to the ranger's presentation:
The original wall paintings in one of the towers.
The girls kept wanting me to take pictures of them rather than the cliff dwellings!
Riley examining one of the kivas:
Climbing out via ladder:
History of Cliff Palace here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Palace
Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America! Quite a sight! You have to have a ranger-led tour and tickets cost $3 each. Not too shabby. We got up there and the ranger starts giving the beginning lecture and Rudi chickens out because of the height. Avery and Riley and I had a grand old time on our own, although Avery was a bit nervous about the ladder coming out. The amazing thing is that although the Anasazi used ladders to enter and exit the kivas (they originally had roofs) they did not use ladders to access the cliff dwellings themselves. They carved hand and toe holds from the cliffs and climbed! I have pictures later that show the original hand and toe holds. Craziness!
The girls both wanted to pose for pictures on the fence. Don't know why, but I'm always happy to oblige! We were on the way to meet the ranger for the tour.
Ha! Got a picture without any people in it! Score!:
The girls needed some sort of covering for their heads, it was so hot. Sun hats were super-expensive at the gift shop so they both got bandanas. They loved them!
Listening intently to the ranger's presentation:
The original wall paintings in one of the towers.
The girls kept wanting me to take pictures of them rather than the cliff dwellings!
Riley examining one of the kivas:
Climbing out via ladder:
History of Cliff Palace here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Palace
Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America! Quite a sight! You have to have a ranger-led tour and tickets cost $3 each. Not too shabby. We got up there and the ranger starts giving the beginning lecture and Rudi chickens out because of the height. Avery and Riley and I had a grand old time on our own, although Avery was a bit nervous about the ladder coming out. The amazing thing is that although the Anasazi used ladders to enter and exit the kivas (they originally had roofs) they did not use ladders to access the cliff dwellings themselves. They carved hand and toe holds from the cliffs and climbed! I have pictures later that show the original hand and toe holds. Craziness!
It's hard to tell from the photographs, but the rooms go WAY back into the cliff. Each dwelling had a reliable seep spring in the back so the ancient puebloans would have daily access to water. This is cited as a major reason that they moved from pithouses on the tops of the mesas where they originally lived, to the cliff dwellings.
