Spirits in the Cliffs - Mesa Verde National Park

over something else, masa Verde National Park. I'm Matt and I'm Brad. We sold our loft in Chicago and gave up our city dwelling existence to live in an r V and travel the country full time. Just us and our dog Finn. Thanks for listening. So the year fifty Native American peoples were establishing deep roots and what's now southwestern Colorado, forging pit houses of top mesas, and eventually

along these deep cliffs, huge communities were formed. In about the late eleven hundreds, these cliff faces were veritable cities, filled with homes, towers, central plazas. Presumably, these enclaves were popular debate people to no fear of heights because these cliffs are steep, like if you fall, you will die kind of steep. Yeah, And just to delve in that a little bit more, is like you're just looking at the side of a mountain with a cliff and then

there's just homes in the mountains. Like it's it's really hard to describe, but that was just so beautiful to see. I mean everything about this park is enriched in mystery and intrigue. I mean, why did the ancestral people leave, especially after investing so much time and effort. How did they live there? What was it like? It's hard to guess, but I mean, at least we can appreciate respect what this ancient society accomplished by visiting this eye opening national park.

I mean, it's the first of its kind designated to protect a prehistoric culture. Um and that's when Mason Verde was established in nineteen oh six. Yeah, it's really a milestone in justin credible and also these places established by these ancient civilizations are just so monumental and what they accomplished with what little they had. Today, much of these prehistoric remains are preserved for visitors to tour and marvel

at the accomplishments achieved. By. These civilizations are so impressive. Um. I mean I can't even figure out how to run the coffee machine in r V and these people. Yeah, and these people managed to construct these elaborate ancient cities along sheer cliff walls. It's amazing. Had I been alive in the year seven fifty, I probably would have been thrown into the canyon like trash. Yeah, that's what I

would have deserved. I Mean, when you hear about the Masa Verde National Park, most of what they hear is going to be the historical and cultural aspect, which is definitely huge. I mean, but the natural beauty of this place is totally understated. I Mean we've read articles and looked at magazines and everything, and they're just all like, oh, yeah, the views aren't that stunning. I mean, but it's just mind blowing when you go there. I mean, they really

are beautiful views. I mean they're just so majestic. It's one of those places that just take my breath away. As you drive in the main road at zigs and DAGs up through the canyons, there's loss meadows. I mean you just see these soaring mazas everywhere. Yeah, it's definitely

a show stopper. I it's so surprising. I like, I feel like we were kind of misled reading some of the guide books because they highlight and talk about the cultural aspect and these cliff dwellings obviously, which are important and focal points. But it really does a disservice to this park to kind of understate how naturally beautiful it is and how overwhelming in a great way of these

mazas in meadows and cliffs and valleys are. It's really incredible. Um. In that road you mentioned, there's really just one main park road that kind of goes in and then steeply escalates to the top of the mazas. It really reminded me of the road that leads into Arches National Park. But the rain here is so much greener, much greener. Yeah, it's really really vivid, which I don't know why I

was so surprised. I expected it to be more desert like. Um, but then when you think about a severity means green table, so I'm like, uh um. Anyway, after several miles, you wind up by the chape in Mesa, which is the most popular area of the park. You have a museum here, a restaurant, hiking trails, and access to the park's most well known tours, which are definitely worth checking out. Trails. Yeah, when we arrived, we started at the Petrol Left Point trail.

It's a two and a half mile trek along the cliff and the top of Mesa. Yeah. I mean it's a real showstopper of a trail, not only with its amazing views, but like also how unique and hands on it was. I mean, this was the kind of trail that requires you to scramble on hands and knee squeeze herself through rocks. It's well worth the effort because of the views from the Maza top are incredible. I mean you just see these sweeping views of the tree line

Masa floor. I mean I feel like an eagle purched on a high branch, which is my favorite animal, but looking down on the world below me. I mean, in modern days, you can say it looks like you're a drone flying through the air. Oh yeah, totally. You have a drones eye view. Yes, a drones eye view. Yes, forget eagle eye view. Just kidding, I love you eagles. The I mean the trail looks back around to chap In Masa. Yeah, the chapin Mesa Archaeological Museum. Yes, it's great.

I mean it has these exhibits of local wildlife culture and history, as well as a beautiful little movie. Yeah, that movie. It's great. That's always fun anytime, just any time you visit a visitor center at a national park, always see if they ask some sort of movie. A lot of them do, and they're always worthwhile and really informative. And let's talk about there's a section in a in a museum here which is just filled with these taxi der meat animals, especially birds, are a lot of birds

in this park. And as someone who pretty much burst into tears anytime I see roadkill, it's it's kind of ironic and funny that I'm so obsessed with taxidermy. I could just spend hours staring blankly at taxidermy hawks. It's really for me. It just creeps me out though I tried to dash through this experience, and roadkill doesn't bother me like it does use it just really yeah, we're backwards again. You know, we're very different people. Yes, very

much in love. Yeah, I'm weirdly comforted by dead stuffed hawks. Um so after we after I spent two hours in

the taxidermy room. UM we moved on and the Masa Top Loop is the six mile route that weaves around UM they're parting from the chape in Mesa area and this is what takes you to some of the most beautiful overlooks and historic sites and also most importantly the cliff dwelling tour, which UM we booked UM at the initial visitor center by the entry point of the park, and you that's a must, you have to do that.

But they're very accessible that it's not like some tours and some parks which fill up super fast and then you're kind of out of luck. This one they do periodically throughout the day. I think every thirty minutes they do cliff dwelling tours, so there's plenty of room to go around and most likely you're gonna be able to get on a tour, which is wonderful, great. It really took the stress out of that situation. And for the whole five dollars per tour, it's worth yeah, so easy,

so affordable. Forget to skip your coffee if you can't afford it, go to the quiff. I'm not skipping coffee I've tried to appreciate the sentiment anyway. Yeah, so we hit the maze top loop and kind of started off. We stopped off at a few overlooks which were great, including there's one where you kind of look out over the Masa valley below, and we saw a snake squiggled across the writer the trail recently. Why did the snake cross the road? I don't know, to get to the

other Masa. Yes, it's probably literally. One really nice thing was that the drive to the Masa Swap dwellings. I mean, before the Publion people started moving into the cliff dwellings, they had homes and communities on the Masa surface, and several of these were preserved for visitors to see today. The main attraction that Masa Verde, though, is the cliff dwellings, which are only accessible by range of tours. But seriously, if there's one thing you do in Masa Verde, you

must go into these cliff dwelling tours. I mean they're just when you get down there and you realize how small these people were. They were only about five five um, and how unafraid of heights they were, you know, and it's like it is the perfect place to be because as like the wind goes by, because they're inside of these cliffs, you know, they stay pretty cool and calm, and it was just it was so beautiful to see

the engineering of these native people to these lands. Yeah. Absolutely, these cliff dwellings are honestly like the bread and butter of the park. It's such an essential component here and obviously the most iconic and famous thing at ma sever Day, and rightfully so, because it highlights the work that these intextual people did, this incredible work which gives me anxiety to think about, because I would have slipped and died.

Like the first day. The tours that we did, which like we said, our offered every thirty every thirty minutes other day, so super easy. We did the Cliff Palace tour, which is the most I would say, the most famous one in the park. Um. It's probably because it's the largest by far. It has about d and fifty rooms. Um. Huge. It's basically like their version of a city carved into the side of this sliff base. I know it's the Manhattan and May sever Day for sure. Uh, which explains

why it's so popular. I mean, yeah, it does it does, and it's really really special to tour this um. The tour we did it was the largest crowd, which made sense because the place is so huge and it accommodated group size like that. We had a really friendly ranger Um who was really cheeky and fun and definitely pandering to the younger members of the audience. She was talking like a cartoon character. It was really cute. It was

like the perfect park range of experience she was. Yeah, she made it really fun, really informative by also being kind of quirky and charming and reminding you not to bring snacks and stuff. Yeah, it's I mean it's really important not to touch anything, just like in Laddin and the Cave of Wonders. I mean, if you touch anything, you'll be chased out of the park by lava. Yes, just kidding, but still don't touch it. Because human skin

has all these oils. I mean, we have sun block on, we use lotion, you know, um, all the hand soaps and so as you touch these fragile structures, they just your oils black in them, and it ruins that experience for future generations. There are some points when you're going to be able to go and touch the inside of things for balance, and they will tell you and instruct you when you can do that. But don't touch the structures because we want to preserve them for our children's

children's children. Yeah, and honestly, if you do disobay and you touch something, you deserve to be chased out of there by lava. I'm just gonna say that. UM. Anyway, it takes one hour to do the cliff Palace tour uh and heads up. Even though the tower doesn't go that far, it still entails some steep um cliff side

steps and some physical maneuvering. So it's not really for the faint of heart, or definitely not for people who are afraid of heights, because like we mentioned several times, these are cliff walls and there's no real danger of falling off. It's pretty well guarded and there are railings now and you don't get you close to the edge. But still it's it's nerve wracking. Um. But as long as that's not an issue, it's an absolute must to

do this. UM, to see these time worn structures, and considering how laborious it was to build anything of that time, I can only imagine how much effort and time went in. It took decades to build communities like like Cliff Palace. So the fact that these dwellings were completely abandoned by the y is so intriguing, Like what would inspire what would motivate you to abandon something that took so long

and so much effort to establish? I don't understand. That's like me building uh town from scratch and then one day just being like I'm gonna leave. I'm done. They say it took like over seventy five years to build, Like that's what this is huge history is telling us. And you know, just seeing all these rooms seventy five years, I mean, we can build a skyscraper in like two in two years, yeah, but you're talking about sending of years. And that's because they did this by hand. You know.

They went and they grabbed all those rocks, those boulders, and they stacked them and they manually labored every bit of this. And these people were like they're not these big early people, but there was so much strength and soul into what they were building that they were able to just continue to build. Yeah, I know. And that just the fact that like this stuff just wasn't sitting

right there at they're disposal ready to stack up. Like they had to climb way down into the valley and then climb back up with heavy rocks, heavy materials, and

you can imagine the involvement with that. And they had to find specific rocks that were soft enough that they could like chisel it to certain specifications and sizes and shapes, because there were some buildings that were round, like perfectly rounded, and they had to mold it that way like by hand and by forests, And there's no blueprints to that. It's all word of mouth. That's how they built. And so um a beautiful thing that was in the back

of all these caves were these springs. Yeah, oh that's true. Yeah. So the reason it's kind of signify as a big reason why they picked these locations is because water in

this environment can be hard to come by. So they picked these cliffs because there was this natural like rocky springs tucked away in the back of these caves here, and it just forms by water trickling down from the Earth's surface and eventually spilling out and forming these little fresh water pools that are drinkable and or can be used as a water source. And I would never have thought that if I was looking at this from the outside, I would never think like, oh water is here. It

does not look like it whatsoever. And one of the things that they did was they actually grew corn in crops above these mass so that the men and young gentlemen they would go up um the hills and every day and to go tend to their corn. And they would take all this time and effort and energy to collect that. So most of their meals were corn. Yeah, they get corn. The park Vanger mentioned squash was a big thing as well, so um a lot of that

growing on the surface above the cliff. Which again, how tedious to have to like get yourself up there harvest things, bring it back. It's like NonStop work in physical labor. It's really unbelievable. And sometimes there was days on trips to go find meat, um, you know, for hunting. You know, they were not vegetarians, that's for sure. No, they were not. No, No, So I guess like deer, a lot of deer here.

So they would hunt deer, dry meat to make basically dear jerky as well use the hides to make leather. Just a lot and they would think their think before every meal, you know, they would they would give their thanks to the animal for sacrificing themselves as part of their culture history. Beautiful. It's just that that soul that goes into this place. I mean, there's so much of that. It's very palpable. You can just get a sense of it.

You can see it, you can you can't feel it because don't you dare touch it, but you can just you're like kind of surrounded by it in every sense.

And there was one like as we're kind of leaving Cliff Palace, there was this tall tower and the park ranger asked us to stick our heads in and kind of look up and at the very roof you can see the remnants of artwork of play blue and artwork in single really the only petroglyff that we saw in the park, and its way up on the roof of this tower and very cool to see, and it was it's just beautiful and also like another impressive feet like having to shim me up to the top of the

tower um to draw on the roof of the cliff just amazing to me. It is one of those most beautiful sites to see because there's so much history and soul into that absolutely, and they abandoned everything. Presumably by the year this is all just completely desolate and they were gone. And this community, all these communities, these hundreds of cliff dwellings were just utterly abandoned. I mean, was a drought, a lack of resources, conflict in foreign communities? Yeah?

Was it Aliens? Probably not. This isn't Roswell in Mexico. But you never know. You were listening to the park Landed podcast from my Heart Radio hosted by Brad and Matt CARROLLAC. We'll be back with Martha parklandi of podcast from my Heart Radio. I'm Matt and I'm Brad. You were listening to the park Landed podcast from my heart Radio. We're in the midst of doing some of these cliff dwelling tours and fresh off our Cliff Palace tour, which

was the biggest and most immersive of the tours we did. Uh. Another one we did was the Cockney House tour, which is also all located along mas the Top Loop. And this one's much smaller than the Cliff Palace only. Yeah, only about forty rooms compared to like a hundred and fifty, So it's not it doesn't feel quite a city size, but still very substantial and incredibly impressive the engineering that

went into this. It's definitely a more adventurous tour, and the rangers are really good about pointing that out and for warning you in case you have any anxieties or fears. It's very hands on. There are some deep it's very steep, and it requires some ladders along some very steep cliff faces. There's some tight spaces that you gotta squeeze through, so if you have a fear of heights and or tight spaces, be warned. Yea, we saw young girls cry mom's butt

cheeks Titan. We saw me almost cry. Yeah, yeah, and I even shivered and I love heights. Yeah. For me it was mostly I guess I'm not crazy about heights. But for me, the thing that kind of uh freaked me out a little bit here was the narrow spaces. It's not like you're super lunking through several hundred feet of a cave or anything like that. It's a pretty short period, but still it's I'm not used to being an environment like that or having a shimmy and crawl.

It's not my most comfortable zone. Um, totally worthwhile. Though that being said, this tour um like Cliff Palace, also takes about an hour and it takes you along some pretty steep ladders, like we said, through some narrow passageways, and along the way you'll learn or really guess more about the pay blown people who lives here. And this

is most notable, I think in the kiva's um. As we're on this tour, the rangers were talking a lot about these central gathering places that were kind of subterranean, tucked into the earth, used as ceremonal rooms to pray for rain and or meditate on the notion of where humans came from, which is pretty deep for a living space um. And then those living spaces there at these little holes in the ground, and that's where they said

that humans came from, with this little hole in their kiva's. Yes, So in the middle of all these kivas are these small little holes only about like six inches wide, probably less in the earth, yeah, probably even less. And so I guess the speculation, according to the park rangers is that people we talk about how humanity or humans as spirits would emerge in the earth via these little holes and then flourish in these communities and carry on and

pass on generations that way. It's kind of floating up like spirits. These kivas are beautiful. I mean, they're they definitely wear their homes as well as their spiritual place. But the point blue and people, they didn't have a written language. Um. I think there was actually one petroglyph in the whole entire park that we saw, and so they didn't have a written language. So they had to speak from the past us to the future. By passing is down into generation after generation, and these kivas are

what actually develop that relationship for them. That's where they passed on their stories. And the rangel led tours. She was telling us all about the different speculations of how they passed on knowledge. And I just remember playing the game of like telephone growing up and I never got it right. So it's going to be pretty hard to pass that generation after generation. Yeah, um, but that's why you know their spirits still live there, right and exc

they feel. Yeah, Apparently there was no real written history. It was all oral history. And like you said, it's basically this long drawn out generations long game of telephone and things get foggy and so now all we can do, and all the park rangers can do is really speculate and kind of piece things together and connect the dots, and a lot of that is really apparent at Balcony House.

We're in addition to the Kiva as they have these little the namesake Balcony is kind of perched on these wooden structures and the rangers were just kind of guessing

what these balconies were used for. I know when we were on Archur she would suggesting they were used for sitting outside of the windows, or for drying meat, storage for and yeah, exactly, and pottery and lots of potential even to climb up to like the second level of the rooms, which is only about six ft off the ground, but because again there were only five fives, only gave

them a couple of feet um of head space. But they would climb up into the second level, which is crazy because you're just like that, does that look smaller than the house in Manhattan? Right? Definitely does. Yeah, it looks like a studio apartment, um so. And some of these went pretty high. The balconies, like most of them are only like two stories, but there was one that went up three or more. It's kind of hard to tell because the balcony is no longer there, but you

can see like where it could have been. UM, but not all of them are able to withstand the weather and the elements as well as others. UM. There was even at one beautiful area where you could see the smoke where was carved out the walls and it was like their fireplace that he did that whole balcon house area, I mean, And then the beautiful thing behind that was we got to crawl through that little like cave, which is the only entrance in and out, like you couldn't

in and out other ways. So like some people even speculated that that might have been a jail or for people that were in trouble. You know. There's just all these different ideas of how they separated each other from each other. So that was pretty to learn about. And then as you go into that where they had the two big kivas um and in all the small rooms above it, Yeah, very very cool, And I just can't get over the fact that like there was no other

entrance into the balcony house. You had to crawl through long, narrow, claustrophobic passageways, which is again for I mean I'm very lucky I didn't live during this time. Keep thinking that, because I would not not too well with that. Yeah, I know. There was definitely a lot of times when were like, like what claustrophobia, fear of heights, oh my gosh, like everything, Yeah, the only thing missing is like a great white shark. Yes, that is true. You are afraid

of jaws. My trifecta of nightmares. Yeah, but you know, just observing all of it was crazy. I even remember the ranger was so close to the edge at one point. Um others she was like she goes, um, you're getting a little close there, and she goes, oh, yeah, I've done this a lot, like don't worry about me, honey. Yeah. And then like right after that, somebody dropped their sunglasses over the edge. Oh gosh. I was like they wanted to get this, like put your eyeglass traps on. Stop

messing around, right. I had no sympathy for that person, Like sorry, I was actually real yeah, because I'm like, okay, great, now they just grow in there, Like a ranger is not going to go down there to remove your glasses. So you really have to make sure that like when you go to these National Parks that you're bundled up, you are tidied up. You know your hair is done. Don't put on a lot of loan or anything like your sun block, because you have to protect your skin.

But like oils, for me, the true lesson from this in particular tour was that oils can really damage stuff. And I didn't know how many chemicals we have on us on a daily basis. So going back to that natural lifestyle a little bit more. I mean, I love my cologne and my things, but you know there's a time and a place for you. Don't ready to put on your cloone to go to the national park. You know, use minimal impact, especially in these areas. Yeah, absolutely, And

she pointed out the park ranger along the tour. She pointed to one of the walls since she says, like, see all this black, kind of smudgy marketing, like this is from human hands touching this too much. And this is what happens when and chemically humans. You know, we're filled with chemicals. It's not a pretty thing to think about. But if you put your hands all over these delicate, centuries old structures, then you can erode them, you can mark them. Up. It's just it doesn't look good. It's

not respectful. Just leave the leave the lotions and stuff in Cologne. You know this isn't a Sisia restaurant. No need to get dolled up. And you know what it was really amazing is I didn't realize like this park was just recently discovered. I mean it was by ranchers and they were like chasing down their cattle into the mountains and they that's how they discovered this National park.

So you see these old pictures of like cowboys. I think she handled those around and she was just showing us like who these people were and that discovered it. And I'm like, oh, wild West cowboys. I love it.

Like it's kind of cool to see that they rediscovered it and like they were blown away obviously, but at this point there was photographs and throw things around, so it's more recent and it is yeah, and like the grand scheme of things, and compared to a lot of other National parks, especially um, that's crazy that they were just like chasing a like a cow or something. I'm worried about that cow that fall off the cliff. She she never completed that thought and told us what happened

to the cow. Not all animals are as cleansy as you. I'm actually very adept. Thank you. You're listening to the park Landia podcast in my Heart Radio, hosted by Brad and Matt Carouac. We'll be back with more of the park Landia podcast from my Heart Radio. Hi. I'm Brad and I'm Matt, and today we're talking about Masa Verde National Park. We weren't able to access the weather help mace of the park area since our view is too long. They do give plenty of places to drop off trailers

if that's the issue. This one, the one that we did, was the most popular and has the most tours and attractions. There's another area called the weather A Mesa which is not accessible for larger view cool So we weren't able to do those cliff dwelling tours, but that's fine. Balcony House and Cliff Palace are wonderful and amazing and for a good reason, the too most popular tours at May

Severe Day. But aside from the tours, we've actually done a lot more hiking trails, like the more Field crampground area, which is the best bet for the trailheads of which Matt did all of them. Yes, we've reached the part of the park where I hike obsessively. Yes, and I take some relaxation and kick back a little bit, but I also go on some amazing hikes with Matt totally. So the part of the park which is best for

hiking is the more Field campground area. It's kind of close to the entrance point, and it's got a few trail heads here, all varying levels of difficulty. I was able to do all of them, of course. Um starting with the I did the Knife Edge trail first, which is super easy. It's like an easy two mile out and back along the northern edge of the Mace. Says, great amazing views of the valley floor and then everything is kind of lowered and flat for most of what

you can see. There are like mountains in the far distance, but it's just like a really vivid, flash green valley and then rocky terrain kind of falling down into it. And while you were doing that, I was actually at the RV, cleaning bugs off the windows and relaxing, hanging out with Finny, you know, enjoying that little bit of time by myself. But I think that you know, that is one of the greatest trails because you actually get on the top of the highest mesa right in the park. Yeah.

Well that's another one that's not it's a different one, oh perfect, Yeah, which one was that? That's the Point Lookout trail, which the trailhead is not far from the Knife Edge one, and that is pretty surrenduous just because it's so steep. It's about the same length, it's like two miles round trip. But the big difference here is you're going up some seriously steep switchbacks to get there, and it brings you directly up to the top of

the mesa and right over top the park. It's incredible your way up there, and unnervingly close to the edge at at times for sure, but the views are just unlike anything else you're going to see here or most anywhere. And it was very cool to be up there. I think I was up there by myself. There's no other people on that trail at the time. And you said, there's like no railings or anything, no railings. They really trust you not to slip and fall, which I appreciate

the vote of confidence, I guess um. But yeah, I went up there. I had a little time to myself. Took some amazing photos. You could see way down in the distance the campground where we we're staying that time. Um, like little dot way down in the valley. Just loved it. And the crazy thing it was, everything is kind of quiet up there at that level of atmosphere, guess. And they'd be these little birds that were like very fast moving birds and it would zoom zoom by me and

it would sound like a little jet. It was kind of scary. Um. I was a little afraid that they would fly into my head or something. And then I I Maki in the face, right into my head and then chaos and sues. Um. So that's the point, like a trail, and that's those were by far the best views I saw in the park. It's you're not going to get um vantage point like that at any other time any other trail. Yeah. And then a short drive from there was the pratter Ridge trail, right. Yeah, that's

the one that we did together. It's pretty moderate, but it's the longest trail in this section. It can I think like you can do a larger loop where it's eight miles, or you could do when it's kind of abbreviated. I think it's like five and a half. Yeah, it's like five and a half. And there was some switchbacks and it brings you up to the top of a mesa, but you're not nearly as high as point like that

trail and it's not as tough. Yeah, there's something north and then there's the south loop of it, and then

the whole loop. And you know, as we were walking through it, I just thought it was so beautiful because you've seen a lot of like dead trees, like beautifully dead, grayish, beautifully like uh, not dead to me, but then you see these like this lush greenery and it's to me, it was just so beautiful being able to like walk up and down that trail with you and have like these cavil casual conversations, um, and just see other people, Like I saw the people giggling and like having fun

and yeah, yeah, definitely. And there actually could be bears on that trail. Um. We were warned that there's a possibility to see bears and things like that. So as we're walking through this area, um, we see a ranger and I'm like, oh, maybe he's looking at of air and he wasn't but um, he's a temporary raiser from Oregon, we found out, so he actually comes down for the summer um on. This is Timon, but he goes to different National parks every year because you can sign up

and do that. So I think that that's like a fun aspect of the National Park Services, like they do look for like different yearly volunteers and and items like that, um along these trails. Yeah, it sounds really fun, very tempting. I like that idea a lot. Yeah. Oh you know that huge snake. There are so many snakes in the severity apparently, I mean we walked directly into two. Um, but yeah, there was a big snake up here on

this trail. I almost walked right into it. I used start randomly recording at different times, and at that point I just started recording a video of you, I mean like three seconds and then you're like huh and I like throw the camera down and because I didn't know like what was going on, and then there's a snake there and I was like, oh my gosh. And so then I was like, okay, I need to start recording again.

So then I started recording the snake, you know, come dorble distance thank goodness for the the zoom on my camera phone. But you got a real candid squeal from me that video. That snake was rather large, sprawled out across the trail, just sitting. I don't think it was sleuther was just lying there and blended in kind of the ground sun bathing, bathing. Sure, I get it, um, but I think this is a snake where we learned that it eats rattlesnakes. That's insane. Yeah, what what was

the name of this one? It was the something about its headbutting abilities. Oh my god, Oh my gosh. How well that's fine. We'll we'll have to follow it up on Instagram with what the name of the snake was the top little snake. Snake was pretty big. Jumping back to those bears for a minute, you know, the same thing is I've watched the news and one bear had to be put down because it attacked human because it

was used to being close to humans. And then I just read an article last night about other bears, um having to be put down because they've been fed and bred into society too closely and they're afraid of them turning on people. So going back to the idea of like, you know, taking care of the parks and leaving it better than you found it is. We really want to make sure that you understand, don't feed these animals. Don't mess with these animals. If they are crossing the road,

you work around them. They don't work around you. Um, because we don't want to harm these animals or have to unnecessarily put them down because we start feeding them. So really taking care of your parks is more than just your parks, because these animals, these bears were not out were outside of this park. But um, it's a really in super super important part of taking care of our nature. Um. But continuing on in a nondepressive the thing is the beautiful hike and continuing that, Yes, yeah,

that was a great hike. Um. There were just so many like lookout points, which are my favorite part of this trail. You could just get so up close and have these huge panoramic views of these deep tree lined valleys below. Um, just amazing and the best best photo

opportunities for sure. I loved it. Yeah, And I remember when we got to the halfway mark, we did the North Trail together, the North Loop, yes, and then you went on into the South Loop so I went back down to the RB, checked on finny, relaxed, got some more water. It wasn't that I couldn't continue, but I had my my heartful. You know, we have our hearts full at different times, and Matt is when his is completely exhausted. Yeah, mine seemingly never gets full, and I

just keep going and going and going. But I thought maybe you could take the time to tell us about the South Loop and how it might have been a

little bit different. Yeah, I thought the best views were along the South Loop portion um kind of a three mile area that branches off the main North Loop, and that's where I had so many of those lookouts where you can get close enough to the edge while still feeling safe and see these huge, huge, sprawling valleys that go on and on and on, and parts of it you see, like the park road weaving through it, the

cars way down below, that was really neat. Uh, and just kind of put some respective like, wow, I'm pretty high up. I'm crazy high up speaking about cars and r vs and Masa Verde. I think that we need to give us special props out to Masa Verde for how r V friendly this place really is. I mean from the visitor center to all the trail heads. There's plenty of rooms for r vs of all sizes. I mean, it was a super easy park visit with r V who just had to drop off our trailer, never have

to worry about parking, which is frequent headache and national parks. Yeah, it was really nice that they had that special designated area for r vs to drop off trailers. Just makes it so much easier. We were able to move our ur V around and navigate easily. We couldn't get the weather on Masay area because we're too long, but aside from that, everything was a piece of cake. Now the drives are very easy, and you know, after we come back from this quick break, we're going to talk about

the town of makos Hi. I'm Brand and I'm Matt where the host of Parklandia and today we're talking about ma Severity National Park food. We're gonna talk about quaint, little artsy town of Mankos. Yeah. Mankos is talking of the town where ma Severite is located. Although the heart quote unquote downtown area of Mankos is a few miles away and it is so beautiful and lovely. Highly recommended visit here, especially for breakfast at Absolute Bakery and Cafe,

which was such a surprise. We absolutely loved it. I mean absolutely loved absolutely absolutely. I mean I have absolutely on my hat because I love the word absolutely. It's just absolutely the best. Yeah, we actually learned we got that recommendation to go here from another traveling couple that were randomly camped next to you when we were in New Mexico at Carl's by Kavern's National Park, which we'll talk about. They were so nice and clearly have great

taste and breakfast because this place was wonderful. Yeah, hippies don't die, they bake. That was their slogan. Oh okay, I thought that was just something you were saying. No, nope, nope. So this place was super popular. We um had to wait for a little while, So just keep in mind if you're starving to I don't know, have a snack or something beforehand, because you're most likely gonna have to wait for a bit. It's a smallish place, it fills up really quickly. Um, it's bustling, but well worth it.

But that really brings us into the perfect setup for They actually asked us if we wanted to be seated with another couple or another two people. Yeah, because they said that they wouldn't another two top for a little while, but they had a four top and they were like, do you guys want to do this sharing thing? And obviously we had Initially I'm just like no, but you were like your enthusiastic and much more like open to stuff like that. I was like absolutely, and I'm like okay.

But I thought it was great because meeting Kate and Marianne it was probably the highlight of that. It worked out so well. I'm so glad we did it. We sat at a little table with um, these two women who were also going to sever day that day, and they had been there before, but at thirty years before. Yeah, so this is a severday reunion. They've they're like guides, like they've done a lot of like different like trail guiding and like outfitting. I think they both owned outfitters.

Kate used to own an outfitter and Marianne currently does at a different part in Colorado. And so I just thought it was amazing meeting these two as I would like to say, trailblazers of national parks and public spaces very much. You know, they were just so fun and full of energy. They really were. They were inspiring to be around and very joyous and pleasant. And Kate, I remember, was also a writer, so we connected over that. She was much more poetic than I was. That became immediately here.

I'm like, wow, you're very poetic, well spoken person. Snaps for Kate. Yeah, she was. She was great. They were both great and it was lovely to talk to them. Yeah, Marianne I thought what was interesting is she was kind of like you, and that that situation where she was like, I just want to be with my friend, you know,

like where we relate to her. I'm like, as like Kate or Marianne, we completely understand you, but we are so thankful that you guys both said yes because it was like one of those moments where we just got to enjoy amazing food, made happies and joy beautiful company. And then they even taught Um talked to us about the Grand Canyon and how they're building there, trying to build a gondola, and there's a gentleman there that is trying to stop that, you know, because we need to preserve,

not to add tourism to our national parks. Yeah, these aren't amusement parks. No, we don't need rides like that. Although I remember thinking when they were first talking about this gondola, I thought they were talking about like the gondola boats and like Venice, and I'm like, what, how would that work? Yeah, No, we do not want to

ruin our national parks. So hopefully that this brings a little voice to that and people start to hear about the different things that they're trying to do at national parks. We want the John Muir Teddy Roosevelt Parks, not the tourism filled national parks. Yes, not the Walt Disney parks, although I love those for their own thing. Shout out to them. We do love your animal kingdom. Yeah. So yeah,

A great time at Absolute Bakery and Cafe. Just delicious, wholesome Americana diner food and then also wonderful pastries too. We got some snacks on the the way out, um, like a oatmeal date. I remember we got them for us to share, and I just ate them both. Well, you ate the half of one at least left me half of the second one and I got to eat that the next day. Um, and I was really depressed. I didn't get the full thing. Yeah, I know I

was too selfish, I mean the other one. But yeah, you're like, you're mad that you didn't get to right now, Okay, I want more right now. I know, hey do you air drop or drop ship? I mean, because you're all of your bakeries. Um, but I guess you know. And driving back towards the park, we have our beautiful um stay at Mesa Verdi r B Park. Yeah, that was so good, what a treat it was like, could not

be more convenient. It was practically right across the street from the main entrance and fommendations were so clean and perfect and they had a swimming pool which was a little too chilly for me. The staff was very friendly in all kinds of ways. I mean, even when we went and parked and like our r V and trailer was a little too long for the space, they didn't

give us an attitude. The gentleman he was just so kind and he was like, you know what, let's just try to move you, even though like people can still get around you. Let's just move you to a better space. So they moved us to that better space. And you know, they just were extremely hospital aspaspitable. Yes, they were they really were. It was great and then also gave us an excuse to get smaller stuff even though we didn't wind up. They have a community kind of fire pit

area and we didn't use that. We just wanted to make them in the r V, which is fine. I was in the mood for smore so it's like, let's just make this happen. But I mean he guilted me into making smores in the r V, and uh, you know, I I went along with it. But I love that they had not only the jacuzi that was next to the pool, but they also had their an adult only jacuzi area, which is conveniently located close to it, but

it's a separated from the rest. So that way parents can maybe still sit and watch their children, but they're not like next to them, and they can have their own time, or people who don't aren't. You can just go into the dark only and it's like a separate area. Um So, the way that they laid out their r V park, it's a one point one miles away from the visitor center, so it's like so close, I mean, walk there, except it's a highway, so you shouldn't. Yeah,

don't don't risk life and limb for that. Just drive over there. My favorite. All right, it's time for one of our favorite segments of the podcast, where we asked each other our favorite things about the national park. So, Brad, what was your favorite thing at Masa Verity National Park? My favorite thing about Mesa Verde National Park had to be the soul. I mean you just felt it in every moment, on every hike, on every um tour, on

even in the drive and the around the top. I mean it was just I just felt so much spirit there that that was my favorite thing. Um a out Mason Verda National Park. If I could bring three things though that doesn't that's not really involved with that is I would definitely love to go rock climbing here. Um I would love to get transported back and get some hunting equipment so that way I can hunt just like

the Bola and people have done throughout their history. And then a motorcycle, three things that pretty much Matt hates. Um I would bring. Yeah, that doesn't sound fun for me. Actually, none of that literally, Like there's three things. I'm like, let's go rock climbing, Nope, I want a motorcycle. Nope, let's go hunting. No hunt, Yeah, but does that lead into one of your favorite things? My my favorite thing

here was the Balcony House tour. Specifically, I just liked how kind of intense it was, but not in uh like horrifying way. It was just scary enough where it got your blood pumping and you got to just do things that I would never normally do, like climb ladders, long cliffs and then squeeze through these near a little rooms and also learn more about the cubas and watch people drop their sunglasses into the valley. It was just

all so fun, so great, um and endlessly fascinating and illuminating. Um. So the three things that I would bring to ma severy day, UM, I would say definitely bring an appetite, slash money to go to Absolute bakery and cafe. That's

essential and I missed that place already. UM. I would also bring good kind of firm hiking shoes, ones that have a good grip because some of the trails we did, or most of the trails we did or um require some scrambling and some hands on activities, so you don't want to be slipping and like crashing into the rocks

or anything like that no, I don't know. And then the other thing I would bring would be whether it's for glasses or some glasses, to bring a strap of some sort so that you don't want to be losing that stuff off like the cliff Edge as we saw. Absolutely, so definitely be careful with that. And actually mine was too truth and a lie. Two of those I would love to do and one I'm absolutely not about that life.

So if you want to go ahead and message us on Twitter with your answer at Parklandia podcast, we would love to tell you in their next future episode. Yes, that's good. I'm I was worried that you wanted to do all three of those things, although still I don't approve of any of them. You've been listening to Parklandia. The show was created by us Matt and Brad Carollac along with Christopher Hesiotis. Our executive producer is Christopher hesiotis

produced and edited by Mike Jones. If you're not already subscribed, you can make sure you never miss an episode by subscribing to the show on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. We take a lot of pictures in the road. Follow us at park landia podcast dot com and on Facebook and Instagram at park Landia Podcast. Special thanks to Gabrielle Collins, Crystal Waters and the rest of the park Landia crew, but we always want to thank you for listening.