2. Mesa Verde is a United States National Park located in the Southwestern corner of the state of Colorado. The ruins of over 600 cliff dwellings inhabited between 500-1276 are found here. Native Americans built their homes into the sides of cliffs, an eye-catching architectural style

3. Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table, offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years. Today, the park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States.

4. The cliff dwelling was first discovered in 1888, when two local ranchers chanced upon it while searching for stray cattle. A large tree, which they identified as a Douglas Spruce (later called Douglas Fir), was found growing from the front of the dwelling to the mesa top. It is said that the men first entered the dwelling by climbing down this tree, which was later cut down by another early explorer.

5. Balcony House (pictured above) is one of two cliff dwellings that can only be viewed by guided tour (Cliff Palace is the other). The Balcony House tour requires people to descend a 100 foot long staircase into the canyon to get below the dwelling, climb a 32 foot tall ladder, crawl through a 12 foot long tunnel, and then climb an additional 60 feet on ladders and stone steps. The Balcony House tour is one of the most challenging in the park.

6. Recent studies reveal that Cliff Palace contained 150 rooms and 23 kivas and had a population of approximately 100 people. Out of the nearly 600 cliff dwellings concentrated within the boundaries of the park, 75% contain only 1- 5 rooms each, and many are single room storage units. If you visit Cliff Palace you will enter an exceptionally large dwelling which may have had special significance to the original occupants. It is thought that Cliff Palace was a social, administrative site with high ceremonial usage.

7. Kivas which were ceremonial chambers, were basement like rooms under the main floors.

8. Long House is considered the second largest cliff dwelling in the park

9. Spruce Tree House is the third largest cliff dwelling among several hundred within the park boundary. It was constructed between A.D. 1200 and 1276.

10. The dwelling at Spruce Tree House contains about 140 rooms and 9 kivas built into a natural cave measuring 216 feet at its greatest width and 89 feet at its greatest depth. It is thought to have been home for about 75 people.

11. Step House is unique because there is clear evidence of two separate occupations in the same site. A Modified Basketmaker site, dating to A.D. 626, is situated between the old stone steps on the south and the large boulders on the north. The rest of the alcove contains a masonry pueblo dating to Classic Pueblo times (A.D. 1226).