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Article: Mesa Verde weathered wildfires of past decade 5 major blazes damaged only a few of park's 600 ancient cliff dwellings.(News)
- Article from:
- Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
- Article date:
- May 4, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Rocky Mountain News. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Dialog LLC by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Jim Erickson, Rocky Mountain News
TOWAOC -- Though wildfires burned more than half of Mesa Verde National Park in the past decade, most of its famed cliff dwellings escaped serious damage, according to the latest results from the first comprehensive survey of those sites.
The southwestern Colorado park, near Cortez, is visited by about 500,000 people each year. Tourists are drawn mainly to the multistory masonry structures built in shady recesses, called alcoves, beneath overhanging sandstone cliffs.
Only a handful of the cliff dwellings are open to the public. But the 52,000-acre park contains nearly 600 of them, and rappelling park ...