Spruce in the Afternoon

This is a shot of Spruce Tree House, one of our best preserved cliff dwellings. The archeologists tell us it is 90% original "fabric," meaning all materials including stone, mortar, plaster and wood. I get to spend lots of time down at Spruce Tree talking with visitors. This I enjoy very much.

The name comes from what was called back then a spruce tree that Gustav Nordenskiold cut down to get an idea of the age of the cliff dwellings. As it turned out, according to the historians, the tree was less than two hundred years old.

Legend has it the Wetherill boys, when they came across this place, climbed down a large Douglas fir and into the site from the mesa top. This is the stuff of legend, around these parts.