Mug House Trail

The Mug House Trail is one of three special hikes offered during the 2010 summer season at Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. The hike is about 2 miles roundtrip and starts at the Wetherill Mesa kiosk, the same starting point for the popular Long House and Step House Trails.

The ranger led tour leaves the parking and kiosk area on foot and starts back north along the Wetherill Mesa road. To the east across a branch of Long Canyon, there is a distant view of a small ruin site known as Lancaster House. A short distance further there is an unmarked vague trail that descends west below the rim of Rock Canyon. The narrow somewhat overgrown trail bends back south toward the Mug House alcove. There aren’t any ladders on this hike.

There are two small alcove sites along the way to Mug House. Painted Cave has a few artifacts to view and has a large reddish pictograph snake, or maybe two snakes. A short distance past is Adobe Cave where there is a small partially excavated ruin.

This section of trail is very shady and cool. When the area was excavated several burials were found in these small alcoves. In the 2010 season, these special Mug House hikes are offered every day and start at 10:00 AM, avoiding most of the summer heat. The group size is limited to 14, much smaller than the groups of 60 that visit Cliff Palace. (This hike is being offered again in 2012 but on a three times per week schedule.)

The trail enters Mug House from the left side. The site was worked on in the early years with the idea that it would be open to the public, but has been only rarely visited before 2010. Retaining walls were built and the tour groups can enter the site to the same extent as most of the other major Mesa Verde tours.

Mug House has about 100 rooms with about 8 kivas, making it one of the larger sized sites in this park that features large sites. The alcove is about 280 feet long by 42 feet deep.

Like many sites, there are upper levels and there are noticeable differences in masonry styles. There is a circular thick tower at the left end. The far right end has a keyhole style kiva.

One of the kivas in the center of the site seemed to have some colorful plaster still in place.

The view from the right side includes the large boulder where the 1891 Gustav Nordenskiold No. 19 is inscribed. Though Mug House is in a different canyon, it is only a short walk to the No 21 site Step House.

The name Mug House comes from four or five mugs found bound together with cord though the handles. The ranger pointed out the small room to the right of the inscription boulder as the site where the mugs were found.

The tour didn’t continue past Mug House, but the water source for this site is a short distance further south and there is a 4000 gallon reservoir or cistern constructed there that collects runoff from the rim. Someone did a study of the runoff area and found the watershed to be 6 acres with check dams to control the silt content of the water.

The study found that water would have been produced about 40 times each year, for a total of about 15,000 to 20,000 gallons annually. That sounds like a lot, but if there were 80 people living here it is only 0.7 gallons per person per day. I carried 0.5 gallons just for this hike. The nearest spring is about 0.5 miles south near a site called Jug House, but there aren’t any viewpoints for Jug House.

The Rock Canyon bottom below Mug House is thought to be more fertile for farming than most other canyon bottoms in the Mesa Verde area. Most of the farming is thought to have occurred on the mesa tops, where the growing season is longer. It seems strange but the canyon bottoms have hotter summer temperatures and colder winter temperatures than the mesa tops. The Mug House tour takes 2 hours and the cost is $15. Tickets are available up to 2 days in advance in the bookstore section of the Far View Visitor Center. This is a special hike to a special site and should not be missed.



Wetherill Mesa Excavations Mug House, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

 

Step House Trail on Wetherill Mesa

The Step House Trail is a 1.0 mile mostly paved loop near the tram parking area on Wetherill Mesa on the western side of Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. Step House is one of the five large alcove ruins sites that can be viewed closely. 

The Step House Trail  is self guided with a ranger on duty at the site. The Wetherill Mesa area is only open during the summer months.

The tram provides transportation to the other trails and sites on Wetherill Mesa, but most can be easily reached by hikers on smooth easy trails. Step House can usually be visited in combination with the ranger tour of Long House. Step House sits in a short side canyon of Long Canyon.

On the canyon rim areas of the trail it is possible to scan with binoculars down Long Canyon and spot Spring House about 0.5 miles away. In 2010 and 2011 there were special hikes from the Spruce Canyon Chapin Mesa area to Spring House. The Spring House hike helps the visitor to understand how these sites are connected geographically.

There are 6 stops on the self guiding tour and a printed trail guide. The Step House site is unique at Mesa Verde because ruins from different periods are side by side under the overhang of the sandstone alcove. On the left as you arrive at the site are four Pithouses from the era of 450 to 750 AD. The pithouse was a step toward permanent habitation from the nomadic hunting and gathering. The pithouse later developed into the Kiva that was central to ceremonial activity and winter survival and is included in most of the pueblo villages.

This reconstruction is helpful for understanding how these structures were built. Mostly we see these kivas or Pithouses without roofs or with the roof complete. There are more pithouses to see on the nearby Badger House Trail.

Looking back from the pithouses are the primitive steps that the site is named for.

Climbing the short ladder allows a close view into the pueblo structure that dates from the 1200s. 

Just above the ladder there are some faded petroglyphs. Like many of the alcove sites, there are natural boulders that are built right into the structures.

 In the same area is a "No. 21" the number given to the site by Swedish investigator Gustaf Nordenskiold in 1891, shortly after the discovery of the cliff dweller sites by the local ranchers the Wetherill family. Looking closely at the No. 21, it looks like there is a faint WETH also scratched into the rock.

At stop 5 some of the original lintels are still visible above a small doorway. Looking through the opening, there are scratch marks on the wall behind that could be places where stone tools were sharpened.

Overhead at stop 5 there are several black Xs on the stone surface that are called Navajo Stars. I had to look for a long time before I could spot them. They have been found at other sites, mostly in Navajo territory, but there is no explanation for them.

On the exit trail there is another view of the primitive steps. For many of the cliff dweller sites in Mesa Verde it is often difficult to see how they got in and out of the precarious locations.

There are good views of the steps from the rim directly above the alcove and the lower part is visible near the pit house displays. The Step House Trail is also a botany trail with small signs identifying some of the most common plants. The effects of the 2000 Pony forest fire can also be seen.

Spring House Trail

The Spring House Trail is one of three special backcountry hikes offered during the 2010 summer season at Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. It is also offered in the 2011 fall season. For many years, hiking at Mesa Verde has been limited to the specific trails visiting the major Ancestral Pueblo ruins sites for which the park is famous.

The Spring House Trail starts at the Chapin Mesa Museum and begins by following the paved trail that leads to Spruce Tree House Ruin. A short distance before the reaching the canyon bottom, the trail head for the popular 2.4 mile Petroglyph Trail and Spruce Canyon Trail branches off.

The route to Spring House follows the Spruce Canyon Trail to the point where it turns from south to north, then continues south to the junction with Navajo Canyon, one of the major canyons in the Mesa Verde area. The descending trail toward Navajo Canyon is cool and lush with vegetation and the relative dryness and change in vegetation of the Navajo Canyon floor is noticeable.

There are three ruins structures near the canyon rims to spot with binoculars near the junction of Navajo and Spruce Canyon. To the south is Echo House and just above to the north a wall fragment of Teakettle House can be spotted. The most interesting is the Navajo Watch Tower, one of the mysterious towers perched on a peak of sandstone with a commanding view of the area.

These three structures can be spotted from the Petroglyph Trail if you scan from the right spots, but the views are better from below. An igneous rock dike is visible in the canyon bottom area here. Where the dike passes through the resistant Cliff House sandstone, a notch has formed that may have been a place to travel through the cliffs.

From the junction the trail leads up Navajo Canyon to the junction with Wickiup Canyon and starts climbing the slope on the west side of Wickiup toward the top of Long Mesa. In early June there were many wildflowers in bloom, so many that the trek nearly became a botany hike instead of a ruins hike.

We spotted a large cluster of Claret Cup Cactus, Scarlet and Rocky Mountain Penstemons, Evening Primrose, Globe Mallow, Cliff Fendler Bush, Tetranevris, Forget-Me-Nots and several of the small Mesa Verde endemic plants that were marked with small warning flags for their protection..the Cliff Palace Milkvetch.

To add to the botanical excitement, this hike had a surprise guest speaker. A researcher from an Ohio University was searching the area for potato plants and he actually found some and showed them to us.

Before you comment that this study is just small potatoes, consider that potatoes are only native to Peru and finding them here would mean that the trading network of the Ancestral Puebloans extended as far as South America. The key research question is when did the potatoes arrive here. The usual plants mentioned as cultivated in the Four Corners region are corn, beans, and squash, and now maybe potatoes.

The highlight ruins site along the Wickiup Canyon segment is Buzzard House, across the canyon from the trail about halfway to the mesa top. There were at least four other small sites to spot in this area. These small sites were hard to spot even with binoculars and were in locations that make you wonder how anyone could get there.

The trail arrived at the top of Long Mesa at a narrow neck, practically a knife edge, with great views up and down Long Canyon. It seemed surprising that Wetherill Mesa is just across Long Canyon and the Step House Trail is visible at the canyon’s north end. Spruce Tree House to Wetherill Mesa seems like a long trip if you are traveling by car, but would just be a morning walk if you are hiking. You could leave after breakfast and arrive in time for lunch.

Hiking north along the mesa top for a few minutes, there is a precarious overlook view of 20 ½ House. The odd name comes from the site numbering system used by one of the early investigators, this site having been missed and found later. This is a two level site and is another one to wonder about the difficult location.

The highlight Spring House was also below the rim and was reached with the help of two ladders, a few ropes, and a rocky jumbled trail. The views are all from a platform on the right side and the tour didn’t enter the site. Spring House has evidence for 23 rooms on the upper level and 68 rooms total.

Looking up canyon, it can be thought of as a near neighbor of Step House. There is a good seep spring at the back left side of the site and the structure includes some rare Mesa Verde columns that were built around the spring and support room structures above the precious water.

The group spent about 0:40 minutes viewing and discussing Spring House. There is some minor rock art that can be spotted with binoculars. The return 4 mile leg of the hike took 2:15 hours and the total tour of 8 miles took 8:40 hours. On the outward leg we spent a lot of time pausing and discussing the fabulous Mesa Verde landscape and enjoying this rare opportunity, even for the rangers, to spend a day in this environment.

The $35 cost included a lunch of a turkey, ham, and cheese sandwich, small bag of chips, small bottle of juice, an apple, and several granola bar snacks. It was a warm 80 F degree blue sky early June day and 1 gallon of water should be carried by anyone making this moderately strenuous hike. This is a great hiking opportunity that may not be available every year.