Mesa Verde National Park

Mesa Verde National Park

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Mesa Verde National Park is an American national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado. The park protects some of the best-preserved Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites in the United States. Established by Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, the park occupies 52,485 acres near the Four Corners region of the American Southwest.

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The town of Cortez is best known as a gateway to Mesa Verde National Park, home of the best-preserved cliff dwellings in the Four Corners region. The world-famous Cliff Palace is the largest one in North America. The first archaeological site designated as a national park, Mesa Verde is home to more than 4,000 sites built between the 6th and 12th centuries. A UNESCO Heritage Site, the park is a must-do for anyone driving this route.
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Located in southwestern Colorado, Mesa Verde National Park offers an unparalleled opportunity to see and experience a unique cultural and physical landscape. Including more than 4,000 known archeological sites dating back to A.D. 500, this park protects the cliff dwellings and mesa top sites of pit houses, pueblos, masonry towers, and farming structures of the Ancestral Pueblo people who lived here. Take a tour with a ranger to see the cliff dwellings up close.
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Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park was certified as an International Dark Sky Park in 2021, and while the park’s fragile archeological sites, trails, and backcountry are closed at night, there are plenty of good spots to enjoy views of the night sky. Numerous overlooks along the park road remain open to the public, and for those looking for an extended stay, Morefield Campground and Far View Lodge offer great stargazing spots and sometimes host ranger-led evening programs.
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Perched high on a southwestern Colorado mesa, the dwellings squeezed into the cliffs offered both great views, and great protection, for a culture that vanished about 700 years ago. Today Mesa Verde National Park both protects, and explains, those dwellings and their mysterious builders. Climb up into Balcony House, where the ancestral Puebloans protected themselves from both hot summer sun and cold winter storms or enjoy a ranger-guided tour through Cliff Palace for close-up views.
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