Day 13: Mesa Verde to Moab

Miles travelled: 5860 to 6111 (total of 251 miles)
Weather: clear & sunny
Highlight of the day: Ranger-lead tours through Mesa Verde, Newspaper Rock, and the scenery around Moab

As we had tickets for an 8.30 am tour at a site approximately an hour€™s drive away, the alarm woke us up at 6.30 am. Disa made coffee, and Aunt Jemima made pancakes served with raspberry jam! After brekkie we packed up camp and made our way to Balcony House. The information you read about the tour ahead of time makes it sound as though this tour is not for the faint hearted: tall ladders, cliff faces, and narrow tunnels to crawl through, all of which you would expect would give you a good feel for what it might have been like to be a native American braving the cliffs to reach this area. However, the tour wasn’t nearly as difficult as we expected. The ladders were stable and safe, the cliff faces seemed small after the Grand Canyon, and the narrow tunnel actually had narrow openings at either end but opened up in the middle enough you could walk hunch over if you wished. But the ranger that took the tour – he really did bring what little was know about the area and the people who lived there alive. He was amusing and informative, but not afraid to admit to how little they really know and how much the theories have changed over the years – but he gets points off for giving the newlyweds in our group grief. 😉

After the tour at Balcony House we had approximately an hour until our tour at Cliff Palace, so we did the Balcony House and Soda Canyon Overlook walk. At 11 am, we started the tour at Cliff Palace. This was another ranger-lead tour, and although the ranger’s talk was interesting it was completely upstaged by a great horned owl that was defending its chicks from some ravens!

On our way past we took some photos of the stunning 1960s architecture of the Visitors Centre and other park buildings; after the architecture at the Grand Canyon it really seemed Mesa Verde isn’t terribly privileged in the architecture department! We then walked to Park Point (the highest point in the park) and then made our way out of the park. Back in Cortez, we went to Pippo’s Diner. The decor was very 1950s, and Scott’s diner education continued. He had a chilli dog and apple pie; Disa had a Texas melt (toasted roast beef sandwich with cheese and jalapenos) and cherry pie.

After Cortez, it is suddenly agricultural country which is cooler and has rain clouds passing through – with blue sky between – and snow topped mountains in the distance.

We did a few geocaches and crossed the border into Utah! On our way north towards Moab, we took a slight detour and arrived at Newspaper Rock at around 4.30 pm. Wow. You drive on a side road for a few miles, park, then suddenly there are heaps of petroglyphs! The ranger at Balcony House had said that ancient peoples further north left behind more petroglyphs than those to the south, and this wall showed evidence of petroglyphs being done over a long period of time.

We continued north to Moab, stopped at a grocery store for supplies, then made our way through the Colorado River valley north of Moab up to the La Sal Mountains, hoping to camp at Warner Lake. We were excited about aspens, greenery, and cool temperatures – only to be denied at the last moment. We drove 40 some miles from Moab, only to find a ‘Road Closed’ sign at the final turn-off to Warner Lake. It is a really beautiful drive, so it wasnt like it was a horrid punishment, but it was rather frustrating. We continued on the shorter route back towards Moab and camped at N38 27.31 W109 22.389; it was a great spot, just not the aspen and lakeside wonderland we were hoping for! We got out our table, enjoyed the yummy salads purchased at the Moab grocer (CraigRat: one was chicken with grapes and cheese and celery or something like that; the other was a salad Disa put together from the salad bar) and a bottle of wine.

Scott’s Comment
Balcony House & Cliff Palace both spectacular. Sixties architecture really sixties. When Disa was a young girl going on trips with her parents, in the 70s & 80s, all the hotels & motels built in the 60s boasted of their ‘modern’ design. She therefore grew up thinking that ‘modern’ meant the same as ‘old fashioned’. Newspaper rock really cool, drive in La Sal mountains great.