Mug House Kivas

During the 2012 summer season, Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado is offering special hikes to the Mug House ruins site on Wetherill Mesa. These 2 mile round trip hikes are on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays between May 27 and September 2 and begin at 10:00 AM from the Wetherill Kiosk.

The cost is $25 and reservations are required. Group sizes are limited to 10. This hike was offered during the 2010 season but not in 2011.

It takes about 0:20 minutes of walking to arrive at the Mug House alcove. There are some minor sites to visit along the way. (See the post from 2010 that shows an overview of the hike, use the Mug House labels to find.)  Mug House has about 100 rooms and 8 kivas. The kivas provide some clues to the development of the site. On the left side of the site there are three kivas that can be viewed. 

We were able to climb up and stand between the second and third kiva. The second kiva is thought to represent the first occupation of the Mug House site. The kiva is thought to be associated with the room blocks that are on the ledges above.

Turning around, the third kiva is thought to represent a later construction. This one is notable for all the layers of plaster that are visible.

Both the second and third kivas have a keyhole shape, a recess in one end. The third kiva has three surface shafts visible. The one to the right is for ventilation and the one to the left is an entry. The middle one doesn’t have a apparent use. It looks like a small fire pit is in the corner of the walls.

The right side of Mug House is separate from the left side in that there are no internal passages. One of the right side kivas has an obvious double wall construction style.

Also on the right side is a kiva that seems to have an exaggerated keyhole recess. On a cold night the recess might be a good place to store firewood and other supplies.

There is another rounded square kiva on the right side that is too far back into the site to see. Mug House also has a tower structure at each end of the alcove. The Mug House hike takes 2:00 hours. Most of the overall time is in shade. There were seven hikers on the tour I took along with two Rangers. I carried one liter of water and snacks aren't allowed.

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