Mesa Verde Rockfall Crushes Cliff House

How does that old saying go, "those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"? Well, it turns out that if you live in a stone house, flying rocks are still a problem. This last weekend, a 4.5 ton boulder fell from a cliff face and came smashing down onto the Square Tower House in Mesa Verde National Park. You can read all about it here in the Cortez Journal.

This morning I have spoken with photographer Tom Vaughan who has taken a before and after shot of the Square Tower House from the exact same location, at nearly the exact same time of day, allowing a side by side comparison. He has let me to use his photos to show the area and scope of the damage. I've done a little Photoshop'ing here to increase the detail, but it may be hard to see on this webpage. Click the photo to bring up a higher-resolution shot of this image.



Tom has more photos of this incident on his Flickr page, as well as a lot of great photos from other National Park sites. If you are wanting a shot with even better detail of the damage, check out this shot. Wow.