“I can’t wait . . . castle on the hill” – Ed Sheeran
Today was pretty low key as far as road trip days go so this will probably be a shorter post. We started our day on Wetherill Mesa with a hike to Mug House. Like our tour of Square Tour House yesterday we were with a small group of 10 making for a very intimate morning in the pueblo. Like the others we’ve been in Mug House shared some common features with the others, but also showed its own unique characteristics.
One of the neatest things to me actually came as we were descending from the mesa top and hiking through another alcove. That site was home to a much smaller block of rooms, perhaps 5 or 6 total and there were no remains visible above ground at all. However, it had been excavated at some point in the past and then reburied except for a 4 x 4 foot section that had been left exposed to show how remains often appeared when they were unearthed. We’ve seen many unexcavated pueblo sites and generally all that is visible is a pile of loose stones scattered on the ground. I hadn’t fully understood how archaeologists were able to piece together how that pile of rubble could be reengineered into rooms with any accuracy at all. The section of exposed underground wall though made it clear that although there is chaos at the surface sections of rooms that had been buried were often preserved nearly intact. Archaeologists simply need to remove the dirt and the walls will appear just as the were hundreds of years ago.
After a quick stop at the visitor’s center for the girls to become Mesa Verde junior rangers we returned to Mancos and the awesome Absolute Bakery and Cafe for lunch. Once again it was fabulous, it’s a bummer that it’ll likely be a couple years before we can return! This afternoon we took care of some road trip chores: grocery shopping, laundry, repacking bags, prep for tomorrow’s (bigger) hike. It’s been a great few days in the Montezuma Valley. Hopefully there will be many more here soon!
