Mesa Verde is a beautiful National Park situated in Colorado. It is one of the only national parks, which was created to preserve the archeological heritage of the Native American Pueblo people. The park has thousands of mesa tops and hundreds of cliff dwellings. A Mesa Top is where ancestral pueblo people grew crops and hunted. It has been found that some of the people had moved here in AD 550. They lived here for over 700 years, before moving in the late 1200’s possibly due to drought.

Ancestral Pueblo people grew their own food and build their own homes. Sandstone was mostly for building. We undertook the Balcony House climb, which is one of the most adventurous cliff dwellings. It involved climbing a 10m ladder, on the side of a cliff and crawling through a narrow tunnel. I really enjoyed the climb but it’s not for the faint hearted. Or just don’t look down!