While tracking stray cattle through a snowstorm in a rugged and remote country in 1888, two ranchers stood on the edge of a deep canyon and saw what looked to be man-made walls and towers built on a ledge on the canyon’s opposite wall.  The ranchers had discovered one of the 500 cliff dwellings and 4,800 archaeological sites that dot the 52,074 acres that today make up MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK in Colorado, eight miles east of Cortez.
 
The people who lived on this "green table" that juts 2,000 feet above the Montezuma Valley were once called Anasazi but are today known as ancestral Puebloans.   Contemporary Southwestern Pueblo tribes and descendants of the people who inhabited this terrain from about A.D.550 to1300. At first, the mesa itself was home to the pueblos, or villages, but around the year 1200 the people began to build structures in the sheltered areas of the cliffs.

Why the ancestral Puebloans abandoned these well-crafted structures is a source of debate. Warfare is one possibility, but some archeologists believe that a 23 year long drought affected the timber, wild game and soil available in the region and the local resources simply could not sustain the population, which may have consisted of as many as 5,000 inhabitants.

While visiting the park makes sure you see the Chapin Mesa Museum, Cliff dwellings, Spruce Tree House and the underground ceremonial rooms, call Kivas.  You can find many camp grounds to fit you need.
 
 
Courtsey of letsgodigital.org