Mesa+Verde+National+Park

By. Kennedy. L

Mesa Verde National Park is a beautiful place! It is fun for all ages! Today the park has 600 beautiful cliff dwellings! These sites are some of the most preserved in the United States.

[[image:mesa_verde.jpg width="500" height="390" align="right" caption="View of Mesa Verde National Park!"]] Location/Size/ Distance
Mesa Verde is located in southwestern Colorado. It is a one hour drive from Cortez,Colorado. It has 8,500 acres of wilderness 52,000 acres of Colorado plateau. Elevations range from about 6,000 ft. in canyon. It is a 18hour & 5minute/1112.15 miles from Oskaloosa,Iowa.

Park Hours Far View Visitor Center is open from Mid-April to Mid-October. It is closed from Mid-April to Mid-October.

Climate
Spring has variable weather. It has temperatures in the 30s and snow, or it is in the 70s and sunny! :) Summer highs are up to the 90s! night temperatures in the mid 60s! Be ready to expect afternoon thunderstorms in July and August! Fall warm during the day, cool nights there is always possible snow in October! Winter temperatures range from the 40s down to the teens. is an average of 89 to 100inches of snowfall.

** History **
Mesa Verde became an official national park on June 29, 1906! President Theodore Roosevelt made it a National Park! About 1,400 years ago, long before Europeans explored North America, a group of people living in the Four Corners region chose Mesa Verde for their home. For more than 700 years they and their people lived here, eventually building beautiful stone communities in the sheltered alcoves of the canyon walls. Then, in the A.D. 1270s, they left their homes and moved away.

Facts
The Ancestral Pueblos lived in Mesa Verde for more than 700 years( from 550 A.D to 1300 A.D ) One of the subterranean Kiva remained 50 degrees Fahrenheit year round. 90% of Mesa Verde's cliff dwellings contains 10 rooms! Some of the most famous cliff dwellings are the Cliff Palace, and the Long House they have 150 rooms!

[[image:Mesa_Verde_cliff_palace.jpg width="675" height="315" align="right" caption="View of the Cliff Palace!"]]Things to See
The Spruce Tree House Cliff Dwellings it has 130 rooms! The Cliff Palace is the largest and one of the tourist favorites it is a huge cliff dwelling with 150 Rooms! The Long House has 150 Rooms inits cliff dwellings!

Things to Do
You can drive on our six mile loop Mesa Verde Top Loop Road! You can hike Mesa Verde's Hiking Trails! Visit the Chapin Mesa Archeological museum!

http://www.nps.gov/index.htm http://mesa.verde.national-park.com/ http://www.pics4learning.com/
 * Resources **