March '98 Historic Traveler Feature By Judy P. Sopronyi C olorado holds an ancient mystery. The trail is cold and 700 years old.
Archaeologists are the detectives.
Some of the clues remain inscrutable, but others give us a glimpse of a civilization that flourished for 700 years in the southwest corner of Colorado and then vanished. To follow that cold trail, I traveled to Mesa Verde in southwest Colorado, fully expecting stunning scenery to go with the mystery. But then I walked around a little outcropping in Mesa Verde National Park and saw my first cliff dwelling, Cliff Palace. Astonished, I stopped dead in my tracks. I had plenty of company in my quest.