Petroglyph Trail Canyon Views

The interpretive Petroglyph Trail travels a 2.4 mile loop below and above the rim of Spruce Canyon in the Chapin Mesa area of Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado.. The trailhead is at the Chapin Mesa Museum and begins with the paved descent to Spruce Tree House. When hiking in the morning, most of this hike is in the shade of the cool canyon.

There are 34 stops along the trail, emphasizing the plants of the canyon and mesa top and their possible uses to the people and wildlife that live here. The main trees are Pinon Pines, Utah Junipers, and Gambel Oaks with Douglas Firs in the cool shady parts of the canyon. 

The mix of shrubs can vary with subtle factors such as facing north or south and the soils. Most of the shrubs that occur at Mesa Verde are pointed out along this trail.

The trail leads to at least three alcoves as it winds its way south just under the canyon rim. One of the alcoves has some small ruins structures. The under the rim route has many steps that have been engineered or carved to make traveling easier, but it is still slow going and rocky, with many ups and downs. The tricky footing, the shade of the tall trees and the wide views encourage stopping and viewing the natural features.

There are several places where the trail squeezes through narrow cracks in the sandstone cliffs. Across the canyon there are alcoves visible, with binoculars, that have ruins sites. Looking back up Spruce Canyon, the Thomas House ruin is visible. This site is above the Spruce Canyon Trail but isn't visible from the bottom of the canyon where the trail leads.

Further on is the junction with Navajo Canyon. The trail visible on the canyon floor leads to Spring House, a Ranger led hike that was offered in 2010 and 2011

. At the tip of the canyon junction Teakettle House is visible on the sandstone cliffs.

Beyond interpretive stop 20 and on to 26, the Navajo Watch Tower is visible across the canyon with binoculars. This is a tower at the top of a rounded knob to the right of the drainage, in the first layer of cliffs below the rim layer. It is also visible on the ranger led hike to Spring House.

The highlight of the trail is the petroglyph panel at the far end of the loop. This is a medium sized panel, and is the best known in Mesa Verde. This one is a little unusual in that there are comments in the trail guide offering some interpretation. 

This panel does not seem to be associated with a large ruins site and it not at an obvious canyon junction. Just past the petroglyph panel the trail climbs back to the rim and returns back toward the Chapin Mesa Museum area. (There is a separate post with more views and the interpretation. Use the Petroglyph Trail label to find.)

After the Petroglyph, the trail climbs to the mesa top and loops back toward the trail head. From the mesa top view, Echo House is visible in a large alcove back to the south. The mesa top trail segment is mostly level and smooth.

In the final segment, there are views of the small storage ruins at the head of the Spruce Tree House side canyon. My hike took 2:00 hours for the 2.4 miles on a 75 F degree late July morning.

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.