Badger House Trail on Wetherill Mesa

The Badger House Trail is a 0.75 mile one way paved route that visits four sites on Wetherill Mesa in Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. These sites trace some of the development in architecture and living styles of the Ancestral Pueblo People who lived here until mysteriously vanishing around 1300 AD. There is a trail guide with 13 stops and there are also interpretive signs along the trail.

You can hike through the burned forest to the trail head for the Badger House Trail which is about 0.5 miles from the tram parking area. The Nordenskiold No. 16 Trail is in the same vicinity. The tram also stops at both ends of the trail.

The first stop on the trail is the Pithouse from about 650 AD. This structure marked the change in life style from nomadic hunting to permanent habitation. This example has a large room and an area that is thought to be for storage. These were covered over with a wood frame and plastered with mud. The entrance was through the roof.

The second site to visit is the Pueblo Village. From about 750 AD the storage rooms began expanding into several rooms. These structures were more adobe with the beginnings of rock masonry that developed later. This site has a Great Kiva where the soil layers tell some of its story. The size of this Kiva indicates that is was probably a center for a wider group of people that just this set of room blocks.

The Badger House site, the third of the four on this trail, has the longest kiva and tower tunnel connection yet to be found in the southwest.

The tunnel here extends for 41 feet. The connection of kivas with towers seems to be common but it is not known why. Current day Pueblo people still use kivas but not towers. The stone work here is thought to be from the 1200s.

The confusing arrangement of walls is explained as a site that was built on top of an older site. It is thought that much of the above ground material was moved elsewhere, maybe to Long House.

Two Raven House is the last site on the Badger House Trail. This site is thought to have been occupied from the 900s to the 1100s. It has two unusual features. There is a small circular room that resembles a miniature kiva. Some sites have great kivas but this is a rare mini kiva. There is also evidence for a fence built around the plaza area, maybe as a windbreak, or to fence in or out their domestic turkeys.

Hikers can return to the trailhead on foot or catch the tram at the end of the trail. There are two short overlook trails to Kodak House and Long House that can only be reached by riding the tram. Hiking from the Wetherill Kiosk and returning, without other stops took me 1:10 hours.

Cedar Tree and other Towers

The cliff dwellings are the most spectacular sights at Mesa Verde, but there are also mesa top ruins to see. The Cedar Tree Tower ruins site is an isolated Tower and Kiva site a little north of the Chapin Mesa Museum and the Spruce Tree Ruins area. This site is probably often skipped by those in a hurry to get to the more spectacular cliff dweller sites.

The tower location has a good view down a deep canyon. The interpretive information at the site raises the question of why were towers built. There are a lot of towers in the region but the reasons for them are not clear. The Cedar Tree Tower is connected to the adjacent Kiva with a tunnel.

We visit these sites mainly in the warm seasons of the year and forget that the residents had to endure the cold winters. Imagine a group of people sheltered in the Kiva under several feet of snow. A tunnel to a storage area with a way to get above the snow line seems like a practical arrangement.

Another tower that is easy to view at Mesa Verde is along the Far View Trail, a little north of the Cedar Tree and Farming Terrace area. There are several large sites at Far View, and I think it would qualify as a National Monument by itself if it wasn’t surrounded by the spectacular large alcove sites.

The Far Vew Tower is a little north of Far View House on the loop trail. The Far View Tower is surrounded by 16 rooms and there are two Kivas nearby. The trail guide for Far View says that nearly 60 round towers have been found at Mesa Verde. The three mentioned here are mesa top sites rather than alcove sites.

The longest Kiva and Tower combination found in the southwest is at Badger House on the Badger House Trail in the Wetherill Mesa part of Mesa Verde. The tunnel was built digging a trench which was then roofed with poles, brush and earth. This tunnel extended for 41 feet.

The Sun Temple site on the Mesa Top Pithouse to Pueblo Tour has a large circular tower.

Tower enthusiasts can find others in the Mesa Verde region. The Sand Canyon Trail in the Canyons of the Ancients west of Cortez, CO has one about 2.5 miles north from the south trailhead. Harder to get to is the Mad Dog Tower on the east side of Sand Canyon. The Sand Canyon area is very rich with small sites, at least 35 on the overall network of trails. The Hovenweep National Monument area is rich with towers, not all of them circular. The outlying Horseshoe Trail, Cutthroat Castle Trail, and Painted Hand Trail have good examples of circular towers.