Turning Red Tail Hawk Trail- Ute Mt. Tribal Park

The Turning Red Tail Hawk Trail is a new tour offered for the first time in 2010 in Ute Mountain Tribal Park in southwest Colorado. This hike visits the Morris 3 cliff dweller ruins site in Johnson Canyon.

The trail head area is the same as the Lion Canyon Overlook Trail, a 10 minute hike to a viewpoint with cross canyon views of the four alcove ruins sites that are on the regular all day tour offered at Ute Mountain, including the spectacular Eagles Nest House. Some of the regular tours will visit this viewpoint, depending on the guide.

From the spectacular viewpoint, the trail plunges over the edge and down a long ladder. This segment is slow going down to a ledge area where the trail curls around the lookout point and up Johnson Canyon. The trail and ruins site has been stabilized recently.

The Morris 3 site was first worked on by Earl Morris in 1913. It takes about one hour of travel on the gravel roads in Ute Mountain Park to arrive at the trail head, similar to most of the tours here.

The trail is similar to the Petroglyph Trail in Mesa Verde, working along a cliff face below the rim but well above the canyon bottom. There are many ups and downs and careful stepping involved. There is a second small ladder about midway along the trail

Along the cliff face there are two small well preserved granary structures visible above the trail and a small alcove that is a ruins site, but without much stonework remaining. There is also a small granary site visible across Johnson Canyon and patches of Douglas Firs in the drainages across the way. There are supposed to be many rarely visited pit house sites on the mesa top across the canyon that Morris investigated long ago.

The stabilized trail enters the Morris 3 site from the left and crosses along the front with a route to enter for a close view. Our group size was only 11 and this was the first tour ever offered of this site.

The D shaped kiva at the back of the site was probably the most eye catching of the larger features. The large logs are still in place resting on the pilasters. The D shape is one of two side by side kivas partially tucked up under the alcove. The bottom features have been left unexcavated. Some of the plaster remains on the masonry interior walls.

Like many of the Mesa Verde area sites, different styles of masonry are visible. The Ute Mountain sites have been left much as they were originally found, with a lot of rubble still lying around the sites. There are also many pottery shards and corn cobs visible here. I saw mostly the corrugated style and not many with painted designs. The guide made the comment that in the early years of Mesa Verde, the boundary was not clear and many of the pottery shards from this site may have been collected by early visitors.

There is another large kiva on the right end of the site. The Morris 3 site has about 28 rooms and is thought to have been built around 1210 AD. It took our group 0:55 minutes of hiking from the trail head to arrive at the site, a distance of about 1.25 miles.

The tour visited the site for about 0:40 minutes and then we were allowed to return at our own pace to the trail head. There is a shade structure and picnic tables at the trail head where we rested and ate lunch for about 1:30 hours before traveling back to the visitor center.

The actual hike and ruins visit took about 2:30 hours for 2.5 miles out of a total experience of 5:45 hours. The cost of the tour was $38 which included riding in the van and a cold drink at the shade structure during the lunch break. This is one of the rare special experiences offered by Ute Mountain Tribal Park.


 

Eagle's Nest House on the Lion Canyon Trail

The highlight site on the Lion Canyon Trail in Ute Mountain Tribal Park in southwest Colorado is the spectacular Eagle's Nest House. It is the fourth of four cliff dweller sites along the three mile trail.

Eagles Nest is thought to be a 15 room and 1 kiva site. The exciting part of visiting this site is getting to it.
The trailhead is reached after a 40 minute ride on gravel roads. Then, a climb down three ladders into Lion Canyon, and hike 1.5 miles along a rough trail.

The first challenge is to climb the 30 foot ladder. The guide made a point of saying that this climb was optional. Six of our group of eight made the harrowing climb.

After reaching the top, there is a fairly narrow and low ceiling ledge to travel. I kept as far to the right as I could, ducking low and not looking over the edge.

The posts sticking out horizontally of the structure probably supported a small balcony, similar to Balcony House in Mesa Verde. It's hard to imagine anyone sitting on the balcony, dangling their legs over the deep canyon.
Creeping slowly and deeper into the site, we could peer into the circular kiva, some of its structures still intact after 700 years. We could creep further and look through the openings past the kiva. Then backtrack along the narrow ledge and the long ladder, to the relative safety of the primitive trail.

Morris #5 Ruin on Lion Canyon Trail

The Morris #5 site is the third of the cliff dweller sites on the remote Lion Canyon Trail in Ute Mountain Tribal Park in southwest Colorado. The trail is a three mile round trip to four barely touched Ancestral Pueblo Ruins sites.

After riding 40 minutes on gravel roads through the Mancos River Canyon and climbing down several ladders we arrive at this 25 room and 2 kiva site.

Archaeologist Morris found this ceremonial kiva with the roof still in place, a rare finding. But he also found a rare design inside. Lacking photo flash in the early 1900s he tore the roof off the photograph the design.
The grooves in the sandstone here were described by the guide as a place where spears were sharpened. These details, along with the numerous collections of pottery and stone tools at the sites here in Ute Mountain Park are things that aren't seen very often in nearby Mesa Verde.

On a second level there seems to be a wall constructed without mortar. The guide suggested that this was thought to be an area for defense. Reachable only by a ladder, residents could retreat and toss the loose stones on unwanted visitors.

Lion House on the Lion Canyon Trail

Lion House is the second cliff dweller site to see along the Lion Canyon Trail in Ute Mountain Tribal Park in southwest Colorado, sometimes called the "Other Mesa Verde."

Lion House received its name for a family of mountain lions living here when the site was first investigated. The site is thought to have had 45 rooms and 7 kivas, the circular underground ceremonial rooms.

The Lion House site originally had some unusual D shaped kivas, though these were hard to see, and also had an area that was thought to be a day care area for children.

One section of wall shows two different building styles, indicating that it was built at different time periods.

From the Lion House site the trail continues on to the generically named Morris #5 site. The total Lion Canyon Trail round trip is three miles and our group of eight spent 2:30 exploring this lightly visited area.

Tree House Ruin on Lion Canyon Trail

The Tree House Ruin is the first stop on the Lion Canyon Trail during an all day tour of Ute Mountain Tribal Park in southwest Colorado. Ute Mountain Tribal Park sits on the southern side of the more visited Mesa Verde National Park. It is a 40 minute ride on gravel roads to get to the trailhead.

The trail gets off to a fast start, requiring climbing down several ladders below the canyon rim. At the bottom of the ladders a bench allows you to rest a bit before continuing to the Douglas Fir shaded Tree House.
Soon the Tree House Ruin comes into view, arrayed along a corner of the canyon. The sites in Ute Mountain Park rely on the guide for interpretation. There are no signs or trail pamphlets available. This site has a setting similar to Spruce Tree House in Mesa Verde Park.

The views in the ruins here are very intimate, as the groups visiting are small and are escorted.
There is time to linger and look around at the details of the site. Some of these details, such as collections of pottery shards and stone tools are not things you see on the trails in Mesa Verde Park.

From the Tree House Ruin, we returned back to the base of the ladders and then continued along the trail to the next of the four cliff dweller sites, Lion House. The Lion Canyon Trail is a round trip of three miles to the four sites.

Lion Canyon Overlook Trail

Ute Mountain Tribal Park covers the southern side of Mesa Verde in southwest Colorado and is a much less visited area than the National Park, all visits being accompanied by a guide.

The Lion Canyon Overlook Trail is a short 10 minute walk along the rim of Lion Canyon to a lookout point at the junction with Johnson Canyon. The trail is on the opposite side of Lion Canyon from the four cliff dwellings that are along the Lion Canyon Trail. Just as in Mesa Verde these spectacular sites are protected by alcoves in the sandstone cliffs.

Arriving at the lookout point there is a spectacular view down the canyon to the south. There are some long benches here to sit and enjoy the view. Turning back and looking up Lion Canyon, the LaPlata Mountains sparkle, Mt. Hesperus the highest of this group. The forest on the mesa top here is Pinon Pine and Juniper, with some Douglas Fir growing in the cooler protected areas in the canyon.

Straight across the from the lookout point is the Eagle's Nest House ruin site, the last stop on the Lion Canyon Trail. The tall ladder used to access the site is visible. It took about 12 minutes to reach the lookout point and our tour group used about 35 minutes total on this trail.

In 2010, the Turning Red Tail Hawk Trail has been added, visiting the Morris 3 site. This hike continues from the Lion Canyon Overlook down below the rim and up Johnson Canyon for 1.25 miles to the rarely visited Morris 3 site.