Porcupine House Trail-Ute Mt. Tribal Park

The Porcupine House Trail is an infrequently offered guided tour to an Ancestral Pueblo cliff dweller site in Ute Mountain Tribal Park in southwest Colorado. This tour was offered as part of the annual open house that is usually at the end of May.

The site location is in Pitch Pine Canyon, a side canyon of Johnson Canyon on the south side of Mesa Verde. The access is from the main park entrance at the lower end of Mancos Canyon south of Cortez, CO. It is in the vicinity of the regular full day tour hike at Lion Canyon.

From the canyon rim only the upper level of the site is visible. From above, it looked like there were a few storage ruins here, but much is obscured by the thick vegetation. The canyon floor vegetation is dominated by Gambel Oaks and Ponderosa Pines, an unusual combination in the areas where the cliff dwellings are found. Usually the Pinon Pines and Utah Junipers are found in these canyons with occasional Douglas Firs in the deeper and moister locations.

There are two ladders installed to descend. This canyon is oriented north and south with the main structures facing east rather than toward the more typical south. There is a collapsed tower on the rim right next to the ladders. There is a drainage channel from the rim area that flows across the rough slickrock right into the ruins area, but I didn’t see a seep spring here. The bottom area is very thick with the Gambel Oaks.

This site has been worked on to some extent, but not as much as the large and famous Mesa Verde sites. There is a trail marked along the front of the site and there has been some excavation in places. Most of the Ute Mountain sites have been left as they were found, with little work done on them.

The Ute Mountain sites feature a lot of artifacts on display. There are pottery shards, corn cobs, grinding stones and other small tools. The small guided groups have kept these artifacts available for viewing. Most of the pottery shards are the corrugated types that were typically from cooking pots. There are also some black on white designed pieces.

A large kiva that looks like it has had excavation work is one of the highlights. The Porcupine House has about 50 total rooms and about 5 kivas. The kiva has the bench and pilaster features that are common to the Mesa Verde style kivas. There isn’t room here to step back and get a wide view of the many rooms. All the views are close ups.

One of the unusual artifacts visible at this site was an example of a small sandal made from Yucca fiber. The guide mentioned that it was thought that Yucca had been planted at this relatively cooler site. Yucca was the main fiber that was available to the people living here. It is surprising that an item like that, more than 700 years old stays so well preserved. This site also had more grinding stones visible than most sites that can be visited.

At the end of the trail the group has to turn around and retrace their steps back to the starting point. There is an option to try climbing out along the original route in and out rather than climb the ladders.

The total tour to Porcupine House took 7:00 hours with about 2:00 hours spent at the site. There were also two stops at Mancos Canyon pictograph and petroglyph sites that are part of the regular tours. There were also stops at the park campground and the trailhead area for the regular tour of Lion Canyon.

Mancos Canyon Tour-Ute Mt. Tribal Park

Near the Mancos Canyon Road entrance to Ute Mountain Tribal Park in southwest Colorado are several easy to visit Ancestral Pueblo sites. These sites are part of the typical half day tour offered here. The full day tour goes on to the Lion Canyon Trail to visit a series of four cliff dwellings.

The Old Visitor Center was used from about 1971 to 1981 with the prominent Chimney Rock looming overhead. At first glance I thought this was an old jail. The wooden door was very thick and solid. Ute Mountain Tribal Park is the south side of Mesa Verde and is lightly visited.

The Red Pottery Village is an unexcavated village site where a lot of red pottery has been found. There are displays of pottery shards and artifacts in the field among the rubble mounds. The museums in the area say that the center of red pottery production was in southeast Utah and the Kayenta area of northeast Arizona, and any found near Mesa Verde would have been traded in.

This is one of the interesting features of the park, the visibility of these artifacts from a culture of more than 700 years ago. The artifacts are safe as all visitors are escorted by a guide. Across the canyon in this area a Hovenweep like tower is visible but the tour doesn’t go over to it.

Many Cliffs Ruins is a small site of small rooms tucked into the cliffs not far above the road. These small rooms are common in the region but are often overshadowed by the spectacular larger alcove ruins. Directly below the larger ruin and left of the smaller one there is an example of one of the Sun Calendar petroglyphs. There is a spiral and a grid that measures the movement of the sun, but it is hard to see from the road without binoculars.

About 200 yards back to the west of this site there is another petroglyph and pictograph panel with a trail up the cliff that allows a closer view. It may depend on who the tour guide is for the group to visit there.

There are many handprints, some broad shouldered figures and a footprint petroglyph. Occasionally there are special hikes that focus on the Sun Calendars along the Mancos Canyon. Usually the Sun Calendar hike is in late May.

The Chief Jack House Site was the home site of the last traditional chief of the Ute Mountain Utes and he was the one who proposed the Ute Mountain Tribal Park around 1970. There was initial opposition to the park and his house was burned down.

The Pictographs at the site are thought to have been painted by Chief Jack himself. The short Kiva Point Trail is also part of the Mancos Canyon Tour. There are easy to see petroglyphs and a large unexcavated Great Kiva.

The final stop in Mancos Canyon is the Kiva Point.  (Kiva Point has a separate post with more pictures.)