Long House Trail

The Long House Trail is on the Wetherill Mesa side of Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. This section of the park is only open during the summer months and has the second largest concentration of Ancestral Pueblo ruins in the park. Long House is the second largest cliff alcove site at Mesa Verde.
Long House can only be visited on a $3, 1.5 hour ranger guided tour. After arriving at the Wetherill Mesa parking area, visitors take a tram to the trail head. There is one stop on the paved trail leading down into the large alcove site. In addition to a discussion of the Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper forest environment a small water conserving check dam along a small drainage is pointed out.

Long House is one of the sites that early investigator Gustavf Nordenskiold visited in 1891 and he labeled this site No. 15, the carving still visible in the sandstone as the tour enters the site. Also visible on the way down are hand and toe holds that residents must have used to climb to the canyon rim.

The Long House tour includes visiting the back of the site after climbing two ladders. In the cool and shady back of the alcove there was a discussion of the advantages and reasons for building and living in the alcoves after centuries of living on the mesa tops. My favorite reason is the shelter from the hot summers and cold winters that the south facing alcoves provided.

There is a seep spring providing water at the back of the cave and small hollowed out basins where water could collect are visible. It is thought that construction started at the back of the site and expanded towards the front. There are also examples of grain grinding stones on display in the back.

There are 21 kivas at Long House, one still having part of the roof intact. There is a ladder to climb up and view inside. Standing in the elevated area at the back, the kivas seem to cascade down to the lower plaza area below. The kivas are thought to have been useful for winter protection and also served ceremonial purposes. There are a few small rock art pictographs along the back wall.

Among the 150 rooms at Long House there are some upper level storage areas. Looking up at these storage areas it is hard to see how anyone was able to get up there.

The last stop is in the large plaza in the lower front of the site. The ranger had the group close our eyes imagine the scene of a major dance ceremony taking place; drums playing, fires burning, viewers watching from the canyon rim, an exciting evening.

The 12 miles drive to Wetherill Mesa from the Far View Visitor Center has several pull over view points along the twisty road. At the three that are closest to the end of the road, small ruins sites are visible across the canyons. These smaller sites tend to get lost among the very large sites for which Mesa Verde is famous. One of the three is a tower that seems to sit isolated on the opposite rim, much like the Cedar Tree Tower in the Chapin Mesa area.

Knife Edge Trail in Spring

The Knife Edge Trail at Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado is one of two or three interpretive trails in the park that emphasize the plants found in the area, and their use by the Ancestral Pueblo people that lived here. The Trail Head is in the Morefield campground area near the part entrance and the hike is a 2.0 mile round trip. There are three hiking trails starting in the Morefield campground area, but none of them pass by any of the famous ruins sites.

There are 32 stops on the self guided trail. In spring, not all of the plants mentioned in the trail guide are in flower, but some are. The first stops on the trail are Gambel Oak and Pinon Pine, two of the most common trees, and also sources of acorns and pine nuts that were edible. Also mentioned are Black Sagebrush and Big Sagebrush, two common shrubs. Big Sagebrush is an indicator of good soil for farming.

In the vicinity of the marker that discussed the blue Spurred Lupine there was a blue flower in bloom, but I think in late May is was Larkspur.

There are some wildflowers along the trail that aren't mentioned in the trail guide. I think this is Clematis in the buttercup family. Clematis is one of the plants identified on the paved trail leading down to Spruce Tree House on Chapin Mesa.

Another flower that was conspicuous in May but not mentioned in the trail guide was this showy white flower that I think is Cliff Fendler Bush. The views from the Knife Edge Trail are from the North Rim of Mesa Verde toward the Montezuma Valley.

Snowberry is a low growing bush with pale pink bell shaped flowers. The Trail Guide says that there was no known Ancestral Pueblo use for Snowberry. Another berry on the trail is Utah Serviceberry, the most common bush in Mesa Verde and probably a source of food. There is also an Elderberry Bush on the trail, the only one that has been found in the park.

The Trail Guide mentions that this bush was so striking that the Knife Edge road was detoured slightly to preserve it. The Knife Edge Road was built in 1914 and served as an entrance to the park until the tunnel between Prater and Morefield canyons was built in 1957.

The Wild Rose has bright pink flowers and red oval shaped berries called "hips." These hips are rich in vitamin C and some have been found in Ancestral Pueblo remains. These roses grow in moist side canyons in dense patches.

A few small Douglas Firs are found along the trail and there are large ones high above against the north facing cliffs. Douglas Firs are also found in the moist canyons such as near Spruce Tree House. The Trail Guide mentions that the most colorful flower along the trail is the bright red Indian Paint Brush, but in late may none were in bloom yet.

Inside Balcony House

The one hour tours at Balcony House at Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado begin in late April, about three weeks after they begin at the famous Cliff Palace. Balcony House is a medium sized 27 room cliff dwelling and is very popular as the tour visit involves the adventure of climbing several ladders and crawling through a short tunnel.Another difference about the Balcony House tour is that the visitor goes deep inside the sandstone alcove, rather than just along the front. The tour has five stops. There is an introduction at the beginning, a pause and view before descending a metal stair case and another pause before climbing the 32 foot double ladder. The fourth stop is in the plaza area where the well preserved balcony is visible.

After the discussion in the plaza, the route to the other side of the site involves a short climb and maneuvering around behind the structures to the back of the alcove, something that the other large alcove sites don’t allow.

The back of the alcove has a seep spring that provided water for the site. The Balcony House is a little unusual in that it faces mostly east rather than south, and doesn’t catch much sun in the cold winter months. The back of the alcove is thought to have been a refuse disposal area.

The fifth and last stop is in the area where the two site Kivas are side by side. These Kivas seem to be particularly deep and perhaps the extra insulation made up for the lack of solar heating here. Near the exit, there is a display of grinding stones that would have been used to grind corn.

Some of the ranger discussion talked of how these people suffered from decayed teeth. Sand from the corn grinding would end up in their food and wear their teeth down. The other observation was the prevalence of arthritis, from the kneeling and probable carrying of materials in a difficult location. There has been little observation of signs of violence.

The highlight exit is to crawl on hands and knees through the 12 foot tunnel. This was the entrance and exit that the people who lived here used. The entrance the tour uses was engineered by the Park Service.

Looking down on the tunnel from above, it appears that it was originally just a narrow crack in the sandstone. It looks like a ceiling was added to the crack and the gap filled with masonry. Some effort was made to make the site secure from unwanted visitors and this is one of the mysteries of the cliff dwellings.

Some sites show signs that security was a concern, but others do not. After visiting Balcony House, the nearby Soda Canyon Trail offers a 1.2 mile hike through the Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper forest to three canyon overlooks. From the first two overlooks, there are somewhat distant views of Balcony House.

Cliff Palace in Spring

The Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde in southwest Colorado opens for the season in early April. The ranger lead tour takes about 1 hour. After an introduction at the overlook there are two stops, one to the left at the ruin level and one along the front of the site.One of the questions about the 600 or more cliff dwellings that are found in the canyons of Mesa Verde is why did they build here? The Ancestral Pueblo people who lived here are thought to have arrived as hunters and gatherers around 500 AD and lived on the mesa tops for several hundred years, until a burst alcove building that began around 1200 AD.

The ranger offered a possible explanation. In this period, resources began to become scarce. The cliff structures provided more security. They were difficult to enter and more easily defended. But in the end, this strategy didn’t work.

The entire Four Corners region was abandoned by 1300 AD. There is some evidence that the amount of domesticated turkey consumed declined in this era. There wasn’t enough corn anymore to feed the turkeys.

Looking closely at the stone work, a variety of styles of masonry are seen. It looks like there was no central direction to the work here, each family adding and remodeling in their own style. This contrasts with the more uniform building styles in the large structures in Chaco Canyon, in northwest New Mexico.

The Cliff Palace contains 217 rooms and 23 circular kivas and is thought to have supported a population of about 200. On the second stop on the tour, the group gathers around one of the kivas. The traditional interpretation of these circular underground rooms is that they are used for ceremonies.

My thought has been that they would be more practical as shelters from the hard winters in this high elevation area. Winters are cold, there can be several feet of snow, and the earth contact insulation would moderate the cold. There are often tunnels connecting the fire warmed and well ventilated rooms with the storage rooms.

Most of the alcoves used as living space face the south, taking advantage of the winter sun. There was an experiment going on in one of the kivas. Samples of the mud that could have been used as mortar were being tested.

The four story tower at the far end of the site has some artwork visible on the inside. At the very end of the tour there is an opportunity to lean in the small doorway and glance up. The interior and exterior walls of these structures were often covered with plaster which could be decorated.

At most sites, the plaster is the first feature to wear away and we don’t see any decorative work. The climb back to the canyon rim includes two convenient ladders to climb. To the right on the way up are the seemingly treacherous toe and hand holds that the residents used.

House of Many Windows Trail

The House of Many Windows Trail is a segment of paved road along the Cliff Palace Loop that visits three overlooks and has a continuous cross canyon view. Most visitors pass these view points after visiting Cliff Palace or heading to Balcony House. The first viewpoint is the Cliff Canyon Overlook. This point is across the canyon from Sun Point which is one of the best ruins view points in the region, with up to 12 sites visible. To the right on the same side of this canyon rim is a side view of Sunset House.

Looking across the canyon, there are three ruins sites visible. Sun Point Dwelling, to the right has only three rooms along a narrow ledge. Site 634 in the middle, has 16 rooms and two kivas. Way to the left is the House of Many Windows.

The second lookout point gives a more direct view of the House of Many Windows. The multiple openings are actually doors. The site is thought to have 11 rooms and maybe a kiva. From this point there is a view up the canyon toward the Sun Temple and a glimpse of Oak Tree House.

Following the road further, the scene shifts from Cliff Canyon to Soda Canyon. There is a lookout point for Hemenway House, named for Mary Hemenway, a Massachusetts woman who financially supported the early archaeological research in the southwest. The site named for her is spread out in a very large alcove.

These three lookout points will be mostly visited by moving your vehicle, but when the park isn’t crowded this would make a nice walk.

Small Ruins on the Farming Terrace Trail

The Cedar Tree Tower and the 0.5 mile Farming Terrace Trail are located along a short side road near the Chapin Mesa Museum area in Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. This pair of attractions is probably often overlooked.The Cedar Tree Tower location has a good view down a deep canyon. The interpretive information raises the question of why were towers built. This tower is in good position for signaling, but there is not another obvious tower in sight.

There are a lot of towers in the region, particularly in the Hovenweep National Monument, but the reasons for them are not clear. The Cedar Tree Tower is in combination with a circular kiva and there is a connecting tunnel. There is another tower and kiva combination on the Badger House Trail on the Wetherill Mesa part of Mesa Verde.

Nearby Cedar Tree Tower the short Farming Terrace Trail winds around a dry wash area. The Pinion Pine and Utah Juniper trees along the trail are scorched from the recent forest fires. The highlight of this trail is the series of check dams built across the gully to catch runoff and limit erosion in a dry climate. It is pointed out that in dry years these check dam areas provided more moisture for agriculture than the mesa top fields.

Upstream of the check dams there is a small ruins structure. This site isn’t pointed out and isn’t visible from the trail, though it is very close by. The Cedar Tree Tower is visible across the drainage, through the burnt over forest. It makes sense that some sort of a dwelling would be in the vicinity of the farming terraces.

This site looks like it has been excavated recently as there are piles of sandstone bricks nearby. The extensive forest fires that have occurred since 2000 are said to have revealed many previously unknown sites, and perhaps this is one. It makes an interesting addition to this short trail.

Sun Point Trail

The Sun Point Trail is a segment of the Mesa Top Pit House to Pueblo tour on Chapin Mesa in Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. On this self guiding tour most visitors move their vehicles to each of the ten stops, but during winter conditions this is a peaceful 3 mile round trip hike on a firm surface.I started my hike at the Square Tower Overlook, a 500 foot paved trail and the second stop on the tour. This overlook views an alcove ruins site that features a four story square tower pressed against the wall of the alcove in Navajo Canyon.

This site retains about 60 of an original 80 rooms. There is another ruins site directly across Navajo Canyon closer to the canyon rim.There are three stops before arriving at Sun Point, the first of three view points across Cliff Canyon and Fewkes Canyon. This is one of the best ruins viewpoints in the region as about 12 Ancestral Pueblo Ruins sites are visible here.

The largest and most eye catching from Sun Point is Sunset House. To the left of Sunset House are two smaller sites and then Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dweller site in Mesa Verde. There is another site down canyon to the right, visible with binoculars, that isn't mentioned in the interpretive information at the overlook.

Moving to the left side of the same overlook, there are views across the canyon junction toward the large alcove Cliff Palace, the Sun Temple on the mesa top, and Mummy House below the Temple and below the canyon rim. A reliable water supply in this area made it an attractive area for these numerous cliff dwellings.

A short distance further is the Oak Tree House overlook. Oak Tree House has a retaining wall at the front of the site and the area behind the wall filled in to level the floor.

This site has 50 rooms and six circular kivas. All of these sites face the south. In late February these sites are snow free while the north facing side of the canyon still is snow covered.

Just past Oak Tree House is the Fire Temple. This site has an area to the left that is thought to have been used only for ceremonies, as it shows no features associated with habitation. To the right is a split level site cliff dwelling called New Fire House.

It took me about 1:00 hour to hike from Square Tower to the Fire Temple overlook including all the stops, and 40 minutes to return. I only saw two or three other visitors on a sunny 50 degree day in late February. From the Fire Temple it is another 0.6 miles to the Sun Temple.