Sunday, November 16, 2008
Location: The National Forest Just North of Mancos, Colorado

Just got back from my second full day up on Mesa Verde. I arrived at the mesa late Friday afternoon and entering the park without paying I had little idea what I was getting myself into. Now, the only reason I didn’t pay is because there was nobody in the pay booth at the entrance, and the sign said pay at visitor centre. What the sign failed to mention was that the visitor centre was fifteen miles away, straight up, at the top of the mesa at 7000ft.

When I finally make it up the hairpin turns with steep cliffs keeping my company all the while, I arrive at the visitor centre with sign that reads, “closed for the season” and “museum open” and another sign “5 miles”…

So on I go, hell I’ve come this far. I drive along the winding road on the top of the mesa and it hits me, it’s 4:50pm and the museum probably closes at 5pm. All this way, and to be honest all I really wanted when I entered the gate was one of those handy little maps they give you of National Parks so you know where you’re going. I wanted one so I could plan my attack for tomorrow before going to bed. Twenty miles straight up, for a dinky little map.

I arrive at the museum at 4:55, jump out of the van and run inside. Not a soul around. I stand at the counter looking at all Mesa Verde has to offer, and then out of nowhere ShaZAaaam!!! Appears Ranger Craig Westover laughing and smiling, “I thought I was almost out of here, I just did my final sweep, you just caught me!” It’s the end of the day and Craig’s energy is like lightening in a bottle, and although I’m stressed and exhausted from the drive up, his energy is contagious and now I’m laughing and smiling, “I just drove all the way up here… all the way up here man… for one of those little maps you guys have!” We both have a laugh and Craig takes in a little overtime explaining all there is to see at Mesa Verde, when the best light hits each site, and finally where I can sleep, once I get back down to earth that is.

After sleeping that first night here at my spot in the National Forest, I’m back up and into the park, this time paying turning away the map, “I already have one thank you.” The ranger at the pay gate looks puzzled… if he only knew.

Once on top of Mesa Verde I’m shooting the sights and it isn’t long before I run into Ranger Craig again, man this guy is everywhere! And again he fills me in on some great info about the Mesa as well as the surrounding area of the four corners. Talking to him I feel like I’m tapping into an encyclopedia of information. It’s great and much needed since I’m pretty lost down in this part of the world and I’m going on intuition and a dead road atlas.

I spend the next two days back and forth between my sleep spot and the high plateau of Mesa Verde shooting the ruins. This place is magical and powerful. It’s mind-blowing to imagine all the unexcavated sites that cover the mesa top and the cliff side villages and buildings a thousand years ago teeming with people. To think of them working to survive; hunting, making tools, pottery, baskets, growing beans, corn and squash while continuing to build their structures. One tourist joked with me while I was filming Cliff Palace, “No obesity back then!” So true, these people understood survival at its core, they lived in a reality without linear time but instead a continual process of creation and destruction.

They were tied into the world of nature, the world they lived in. We ourselves have become immersed, just like McLuhan said, in a technological reality void of nature, or a new technological nature.

Yet in this new world, we fail to plug ourselves into reality, instead plugging ourselves into the technology. We plug ourselves into cars, computers, pavement, office buildings, TV, video games, radio, couches, coffee tables, countertops, crock pots… where was I going with this… it’s ALL technology. And the problem isn’t that we’re not plugging into nature, the problem is that most of us aren’t plugging into anything except noise, we’re distracted by the technological messaging to the extent that we can’t perceive what’s happening behind it.

The ancient pueblo here used to craft pottery with the local soil, they used to watch the weather change, weave baskets out of yucca fiber, build their homes, tell stories, talk, sit, listen…

Being at Mesa Verde really affected me. I’m seeing it now. Spending three days looking back in time. It’s amazing. And realizing that the people left, after hundreds of years and countless generations, something wasn’t working, or something was changing for the worst. Either they had a prolonged drought, depleted their soil quality from over-intensive farming, or came under attack by competing tribes… either way they left… changed locations… and haven’t returned.

What happens to a people when things collapse for whatever reason? I guess they just dissipate… Go someplace better and hope no one else is already there.

peace,
d