Luminarias at Spruce Tree House

A Luminaria is a small lantern made with a lighted candle supported inside an open brown paper bag with a layer of sand. During the holiday season displays of Luminarias are popular in Arizona and New Mexico and other areas of the southwest.

The small lights are spaced at about ten feet along both sides of side walks and roads and create an enchanting evening display.

Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado has an annual event where the route leading to the popular Spruce Tree House ruin is lined with Luminairas and the interiors and plazas of the ruin structures are lighted with camping lanterns. This is a popular event, especially with photographers. Tripods crowd the best vantage points both on the canyon rim and below.

In winter, there are normally three tours of Spruce Tree House per day, but another four are added for this special event. As dusk settles, the flickering Luminarias guide visitors down the switch back trail that descends into the ruin site. Walk carefully, it's still very dark with only candles to guide the way.

One of the problems that Ancestral Pueblo People would have had living in these cliff dweller sites is keeping warm in the winter. These rooms may have had small fires burning such that the effect may have been something like this. There are soot marks on the rock ceilings that some think indicate fires burning 24 hours a day.

My visit was right at dusk and I left just as much of the visiting crowd was still arriving. It is a twisty dark road for 25 miles to get to the Spruce Tree Ruins site, and there were ice patches in spots that don't get any winter sun. But the traffic arriving for this special event was heavy and the parking area full.