Author: Munier Salem

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Long House (Mesa Verde NP)

August 27, 2021

Wetherill Mesa

Mesa Verde National Park features elaborate cliff dwellings and myriad archeological sites. The structures, excavations, and artifacts span over a thousand years of ancestral Puebloan history. The park divides into two large sub-mesas. Chapin Mesa hosts crowd favorites like Cliff Palace and Square Tower House. But the quieter Wetherill Mesa features its own set of large cliff dwellings, like Mug House, Step House, and Long House.

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Square Tower House (Mesa Verde NP)

August 27, 2021

Seven Centuries Later

During my recent visit to Mesa Verde National Park, I took a ranger-guided tour of Square Tower House. The “house” consists of a set of stone dwellings built into a cliffside by the ancestral Puebloans. The park contains roughly half a dozen major dwelling sites periodically open to the public in some fashion. Square Tower in particular features the tallest ancient structure in the park.

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Mesa Verde National Park

August 26, 2021

Views for Days

Colorado boasts an impressive roster of four national parks. Everyone knows Rocky Mountain National Park. It ranks among the most popular in the country, with roughly 4.4 million visitors in 2021 alone. But way over in the southwest corner of the state lies Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa Verde ranks as Colorado’s least-visited, but arguably one of the nation’s most unique.

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Mount Sneffels via the South Slopes

August 24, 2021

Journey to the Center of the San Juans

My Sneffels adventure came towards the end of my first year bagging fourteener peaks in Colorado. That was no accident! Sneffels sits, tucked away in the San Juan mountains of Southwestern Colorado. This large, rugged range lies many hours from major metros like Denver. Some of the trickiest fourteeners reside in the San Juans.

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The DeCaLiBron

August 14, 2021

Come on down to South Park

I arrived the night before in the small town of Alma, Colorado. Alma claims to be the highest incorporated town in the United States. Indisputably, at roughly 10,500′ Alma has the highest altitude post office in the US. I slept that night at the Treeline Hostel, which bills itself as “the highest elevation accommodation in North America” … see a pattern here?

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