"The Mesa Verde region", writes Arthur Chapman, "has many attractions besides its ruins. It is a land of weird beauty. The canyons which seam the mesa, all of which lead toward the distant Mancos River, are, in many cases, replicas of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. While the summer days are warm, the nights are cool, and the visitor should bring plenty of wraps besides the clothing and shoes necessary for the work of climbing around among the trails. It is a country for active footwork, just as it was in the days of the cliff dwellers themselves. But when one has spent a few days among the cedars and pinon pines of the Mesa Verde, well named Green Table by the Spaniards of early days, he becomes an enthusiast and will be found among those who return again and again to this most unique of national parks to study its mysteries and its beauties from all angles." The northern edge of the mesa terminates in a precipitous bluff, averaging 2,000 feet above the Montezuma Valley. The general slope of the surface is to the south, and as the main entrance highway meanders back and forth in heading each smaller canyon, many times skirting the very brink of the great northern fault line, tremendous expanses of diversified terrain are brought into view, first in Colorado and Utah, then in Arizona and New Mexico. A new scenic road approximately 1 mile in length branches from the main highway at a point 10.2 miles beyond the entrance checking station and ascends to the crest of Park Point, the highest part of the Mesa Verde National Park, which attains an elevation of 8,572 feet above sea level. From this majestic prominence the great Montezuma Valley, dotted with artificial lakes and fertile fields, appears as from an airplane, while to the north are seen the Rico Mountains and the Lone Cone of Colorado, and to the east, the La Plata Mountains. To the west the La Sals, the Blues, and Bears Ears, of Utah, dominate the horizon. Some of these landmarks are more than 115 miles distant. Southward numerous deep canyons, in which the more important cliff dwellings are found, subdivide the Mesa Verde into many long, narrow tonguelike mesas. The dark purplish canyon of the Mancos River is visible in the middle foreground, and beyond, above the jagged outline of the mesa to the south, the Navajo Reservation, surrounded by the deep-blue Carrizos of Arizona and the Lukachukai and Tunichas of New Mexico. In the midst of this great mountain-enclosed, sandy plain, which, seen from the mesa, resembles a vast inland sea surrounded by dark, forbidding mountains, rises Ship Rock (45 miles distant), a great, jagged shaft of igneous rock, 1,860 feet high, which appears for all the world like a great "windjammer" under full sail. Toward evening the illusion is perfect.