Spruce Tree House Ruins Trail

Spruce Tree House at Mesa Verde is the third largest cliff dweller ruin and is a favorite as it is located near a variety of visitor services including the Chapin Mesa Museum, gift shop, and food service.

There is a paved trail leading down into Spruce Tree Canyon. This trail also is the starting point for the Petroglyph Trail and the Spruce Canyon Trail. Many of the common plants growing in the canyon are also identified along the paved trail. There is a trail guide available that provides interpretation for the site. Many of the plants along the trail are identified with comments on their possible uses.

The first courtyard represents an area where people lived and worked on good weather days. The three story wall fronts about 20 rooms accessed through the rectangular and key hole shaped openings. There is a layer of soot on the cave ceiling and a kiva in the foreground.

Kivas are thought to have been the center of spiritual activity and also as a work area and social gathering place. They are designed to give good ventilation, as opposed to the other rooms. Fresh air was drawn in through a ventilation shaft and deflected around the room. Roof beams were supported by the six pilasters distributed around the circle. There appears to be eight kivas as part of the Spruce Tree House site. Three of the Spruce Tree House kivas have reconstructed roofs and one can be entered.

The section on the right is one of the rare places where some modern reconstruction was done to prevent further collapse. Most of the sites have only had some minor work done for stabilization.

The view that the people had living here while standing in the plaza was pleasant, very green and sheltered, with the tall Douglas Firs looming overhead. A small spring provided water for this site and aided the plant growth.

There are two historic inscriptions to look for at Spruce Tree House. The Nordenskiold No. 1 is found near the left rim of the kiva that is discussed at stop 6 on the self guided tour. Nordenskiold was the first scientist to examine Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings in 1891. The Nordenskiold No. 15 is easy to see at Long House on Wetherill Mesa. One of the short trails on Wetherill Mesa is named the Nordenskiold No. 16 Trail, but the inscription isn’t visible. 

Near the right end of the alcove the John Wetherill initials JW are visible. John Wetherill ranged far in the Four Corners area and left initials in many locations.

T Shaped Doors at Spruce Tree House

During the winter season at Mesa Verde National Park, Spruce Tree House is the only large alcove ruins site that can be visited. There are three free ranger guided tours per day leaving from the Chapin Mesa Museum at 10:00 AM, 1:00 PM and 3:30 PM.

One of the detail features of Spruce Tree House is the many T shaped doorways that are easily visible. T shaped doorways are particular to and symbolic of the American southwest. They are thought to have first appeared at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico around 1020 AD. The T shapes appear later at Aztec Ruins in Aztec New Mexico and then in the Mesa Verde area.

The left side plaza area behind the two reconstructed kivas has several T shapes visible including a few that appear to have been bricked in afterwards.

There is debate as to whether the T shapes have a practical function or are they symbolic. The wider top might provide a wider space for carrying material inside and places to place your hands if you want to vault into the room. The narrow bottom might help conserve heat.

Some have noticed that the T doorways are only present for habitation rooms and not for storage rooms. This would make the living rooms easier to spot from a distance. Most of the Spruce Tree House T shapes appear to be symmetrical, but this one has uneven shoulders and looks like a larger opening was bricked in later.

Another site in the Mesa Verde area with easy to visit T shaped doors is the Escalante Pueblo at the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores, Colorado. This site is thought to have been built originally in 1129 AD, making it older than Spruce Tree House where construction is thought to have occurred from 1200 to 1276 AD.

In this case the T shapes are lined up and lead from one room to the next and are not just on the exterior of the structure. Inside the Anasazi Center Museum there is a mug with a T shaped handle, giving support to the idea that the T shape is symbolic of something.

It looks like there are also places at Spruce Tree House where one T shaped door leads to another interior T shaped door. The winter tour of Spruce Tree House takes about 1:00 hour. On my mid December visit there were only two hikers on the 10:00 AM tour, a much better experience than during the busy summer season.

Spruce Tree House in Winter

During the winter months at Mesa Verde, the popular ranger guided tours to Cliff Palace, Long House, and Balcony House close for the season. The Spruce Tree House schedule changes from a self guided trail to three guided tours per day.

The paved trail is cleared of snow and the groups are usually small compared to the crowds that visit during the warm months of the year. The ranger guided tour emphasizes that the people that lived here had adequate food, water, shelter, warmth, useful daily activities, entertainment, in short everything that we view as necessary for a full life. The architecture of the site is examined, including the eight circular kivas that served multiple functions in the community.

The Kivas are often described as having religious significance, based on their use by Pueblo People living today. Under the winter conditions that occur in mid January, with nearly two feet of snow on the mesa tops, the kivas are obviously a warm sheltered area to use during the most difficult weather conditions.

One of the Spruce Tree House Kivas has been reconstructed so that visitors can climb down the ladder and get the feel for the inside. Mostly, we view the kivas from the rim without the roof. During the off season, the usual long line to climb down into the kiva disappears. This was my chance.

The Spruce Tree House reconstructed kiva seems to lack the fire pit and the small symbolic Sipapu but has the pilasters and a nicely constructed roof. It seems small once inside, but was probably cozy and warm and could accommodate a dozen people if it had to. Then bench like banquette is too high to use as a bench in this kiva, while at other kivas it looks like a good seat.

Other reconstructed Kivas in the region include Edge of the Cedars State Park in Blanding, Utah, Three Kiva Pueblo in the Montezuma Canyon in Utah. There is a side view from the bottom of a Kiva at the Lowry Pueblo site near Pleasant View, CO. The most elaborate reconstructed Kiva is the Great Kiva at the Aztec Ruins in Aztec, NM.

Mesa Verde-The Five Large Alcoves

The large alcove cliff dwellings are the most compelling attractions of Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. There are 2000 archaeology sites in the park and 600 cliff structures, but there are five large and spectacular sites that are essential.

Two of the large alcoves that can be entered are on the Wetherill Mesa side of the park and can only be visited during the summer months between the Memorial Day and Labor Day holidays. The Step House site trail head is near the parking area and tram loading area that provides transportation to the other Wetherill sites. Step House is a self-guiding trail with a ranger stationed near the site to answer questions.

A highlight of the Step House site is the side by side display of the pit house style of living with the later masonry pueblo style. Most pit house dwellings are on the mesa tops, but apparently some were also using the alcove sites. One of the mysteries of Mesa Verde is why was there a burst of alcove building in the era just before the entire area was abandoned.

One of the hidden sites of Mesa Verde and Wetherill Mesa is Mug House. There are no viewpoints for Mug House. Some special hikes were offered in 2006 for the 100 year anniversary of the park, but otherwise it rests unvisited (until 2010 when it was re-opened.).

Long House is the second largest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde with 150 rooms, 19 kivas and a large central plaza. The Long House ranger led tour takes 1.5 hours and requires a $3 ticket from the Far View Visitor Center. After purchasing a ticket and driving to the parking area, there is a short tram ride to the trailhead. The final comments of the tour I took described a scene where large dances or ceremonies took place here with plenty of room for spectators along the canyon rim.

The other site in Mesa Verde that seems similar is the Fire Temple site visible from the Sun Point overlook along the self guiding Mesa Top Tour in the Chapin Mesa area. One of the other trails in the Wetherill Mesa area is the Long House Overlook Trail, where a wide view of the site is available.

The Spruce Tree House is the easiest of the large alcoves to visit and is really the center of Mesa Verde. In addition to being the third largest cliff dwelling with about 114 rooms and 8 kivas, the Chapin Mesa Museum is located at the trail head and there is a snack bar, book store and gift shop as part of the visitor facilities.

The paved trail leading to Spruce Tree House is open as a self guiding route during the mild parts of the year and is the only guided and free tour available during the winter months. The plants along the trail are identified with comments on their possible use to the people who lived here. Two 2.4 mile hiking trails, the Petroglyph Trail and the Spruce Canyon Trail also begin at the same trail head. If you only have time for a short visit to Mesa Verde, the Spruce Tree House area is the place to go.

Along with Cliff Palace and Long House, the Balcony House is one of three cliff dwellings that require a $3 ranger led tour to visit. Balcony House is often a highlight as it involves climbing ladders and crawling through a short tunnel. Balcony House is located along a loop road that includes Cliff Palace and the series of lookout points I call the House of Many Windows Trail or the Cliff Canyon Overlooks..

Balcony House is not a unique in its size but seems to be a possible special use site. It faces east rather than south and has more difficult access than most sites. The rarely visited Inaccessible House in the nearby Ute Mountain Park is another example of a possible special use site. Balcony House is open for tours from late April to mid October, a slightly shorter season than Cliff Palace. During the off season, the loop road is closed to vehicles but can be hiked.

Cliff Palace is the largest and most famous of the cliff dwellings ruins sites at Mesa Verde and in North America. The visitor season for ranger led tours of Cliff Palace is early April to early November with the road closing in winter but the overlook still open to hikers. If you visit Cliff Palace only, it appears to be an isolated site, but when viewed from Sun Point, across the canyon, it is seen as part of a very busy area. There are about 12 different sites visible from Sun Point, one of the stops on the Mesa Top Pithouse to Pueblo self guiding tour.

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.