During the nine days we spent in the park, we visited many of the ruins. I found this site particularly interesting. It's a mesa top reservoir. The path in on the right site is where a ditch fed the reservoir. No evidence that I'm aware of that they distributed water from the reservoir to crops via ditch, so they must have carried the water themselves.
Cliff Palace, from above. The only way for the general public to access Cliff Palace, Long House and Balcony House is via Ranger led tours. We took the tours and, surprisingly, found the rangers to be both informative and insightful.
Here our tour guide Clyde prepares to lead the group up the ladder to Balcony house. To the upper left is the viga for which Balcony House is named.
This is a picture, taken inside a restored kiva, showing details on the cribbed roof construction. I've wondered how they used the pilasters on the kiva edge to support the roof, and here's how.
Long House. We visited Long House on Wetherill Mesa the day they opened the Mesa for the season. This was my favorite of all the big houses that we visited.
View from inside Long House, showing various construction levels.
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