In celebration of National Park Week, which runs through Tuesday, Fodor’s Travel Guides has reviewed America’s 59 national parks and selected six to visit in 2013. Mesa Verde National Park made the cut.

Mesa Verde was selected for “its enduring mystery,” the guide said.”Why did roughly 5,000 Anasazi simply disappear – eight centuries ago – from the cliffs and mesas that had been their home for more than 700 years?”

Fodor’s information is a little out of date. Tara Travis, the curator of Mesa Verde’s collections, said the correct term for the cliff dwellers is ancestral Puebloans, because 26 modern-day Native American tribes are their descendants. And a combination of factors is thought to have driven them away, including prolonged drought and conflicts with neighbors.

The other parks on the list are Acadia in Maine, Pinnacles in California, the Everglades in Florida, Wind Cave in South Dakota and Volcanoes in Hawaii.

Herald Staff