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.

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.

Badger House Trail on Wetherill Mesa

The Badger House Trail is a 0.75 mile one way paved route that visits four sites on Wetherill Mesa in Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. These sites trace some of the development in architecture and living styles of the Ancestral Pueblo People who lived here until mysteriously vanishing around 1300 AD. There is a trail guide with 13 stops and there are also interpretive signs along the trail.

You can hike through the burned forest to the trail head for the Badger House Trail which is about 0.5 miles from the tram parking area. The Nordenskiold No. 16 Trail is in the same vicinity. The tram also stops at both ends of the trail.

The first stop on the trail is the Pithouse from about 650 AD. This structure marked the change in life style from nomadic hunting to permanent habitation. This example has a large room and an area that is thought to be for storage. These were covered over with a wood frame and plastered with mud. The entrance was through the roof.

The second site to visit is the Pueblo Village. From about 750 AD the storage rooms began expanding into several rooms. These structures were more adobe with the beginnings of rock masonry that developed later. This site has a Great Kiva where the soil layers tell some of its story. The size of this Kiva indicates that is was probably a center for a wider group of people that just this set of room blocks.

The Badger House site, the third of the four on this trail, has the longest kiva and tower tunnel connection yet to be found in the southwest.

The tunnel here extends for 41 feet. The connection of kivas with towers seems to be common but it is not known why. Current day Pueblo people still use kivas but not towers. The stone work here is thought to be from the 1200s.

The confusing arrangement of walls is explained as a site that was built on top of an older site. It is thought that much of the above ground material was moved elsewhere, maybe to Long House.

Two Raven House is the last site on the Badger House Trail. This site is thought to have been occupied from the 900s to the 1100s. It has two unusual features. There is a small circular room that resembles a miniature kiva. Some sites have great kivas but this is a rare mini kiva. There is also evidence for a fence built around the plaza area, maybe as a windbreak, or to fence in or out their domestic turkeys.

Hikers can return to the trailhead on foot or catch the tram at the end of the trail. There are two short overlook trails to Kodak House and Long House that can only be reached by riding the tram. Hiking from the Wetherill Kiosk and returning, without other stops took me 1:10 hours.

Chapin Mesa Wildflowers in Early May

On May 2, I hiked several of the short trails on Chapin Mesa in Mesa Verde National Park, looking for the early spring wildflowers. The Chapin Mesa bookstore has a small field guide available, “Wildflowers of Mesa Verde”, for $11.95.

Some of the major trees and shrubs and a few wildflowers are identified by small signs along the paved trail leading down to Spruce Tree House. The printed trail guide for the Petroglyph Trail identifies many Mesa Verde plants using the numbered stops.

In early May, the most conspicuous flower is the white five petaled blossom of the Utah Serviceberry, the most common shrub in Mesa Verde. This member of the Rose Family was particularly abundant in the Far View area and on the Far View Sites Trail. A plant that Serviceberry resembles in size and shape is Mountain Mahogany, also in the Rose Family. The Mountain Mahogany has small inconspicuous flowers but has distinctive corkscrew fruits.

Closer to the Chapin Mesa Visitor Center area, the more eye catching flowering shrub is the Bitterbrush in the Rose Family displaying small yellow flowers. There are many of these around the Visitor Center and a few on the upper part paved trail leading to Spruce Tree House.

Despite how abundant it is, I didn't see a small sign identifying it. Bitterbrush can be confused with Cliff Rose. I have seen Cliff Rose in dry canyons such as Sand Canyon, west of Cortez, CO, but I don’t think I have seen it at Mesa Verde.

Fendlerbush has large four petaled white flowers and is a member of the Hydrangea Family. I saw several of these on the Farming Terrace Trail near the series of check dams. The blooms seemed to be just starting on the day I hiked.

Squaw Apple in the Rose Family has five white petals and from a distance could be confused with the Serviceberry. The leaves of Squaw Apples are long and slender compared to the more oval leaves of Serviceberry. I saw many Squaw Apples in the rim area and short trail to the Square Tower Overlook on the Mesa Top Pithouse to Pueblo Tour.

Arrowleaf Balsamroots in the Sunflower Family were visible along the main park road from the Park Point area and south toward Far View. I saw several bunches of these on the Far View Sites Trail. There is a similar looking plant called Mule’s Ears that blooms later and has slightly different leaves.

One of the eye catching flowers on the Spruce Tree House paved trail is Firecracker Penstemon in the Snapdragon Family. I also saw these growing in a kiva at Square Tower House and on the Soda Canyon Trail.

Oregon Grape in the Barberry Family is abundant and conspicuous at the canyon bottom below Spruce Tree House. It is one of the ones that is identified with a small sign. Many of these plants produce small fruits that are good wildlife food.

I saw Chokecherry in the Rose Family in a small patch on the exit path of the Spruce Tree House Trail, past the ruins site but before the canyon bottom where the Oregon Grape was visible.

The printed guide to wildflowers says that there at least 13 species of Milkvetch at Mesa Verde. I saw this example on the Soda Canyon Trail that leads to the overlook of Balcony House.

The Soda Canyon Trail also had some good patches of Phlox. This is another plant where there are several species but the flowers tend to look the same.

My total wildflower hike included the Far View, Farming Terrace, Spruce Tree House, Square Tower Overlook, and Soda Canyon Trails. These are short trails that seem to vary in habitat enough to produce a variety of early spring wildflowers.

Far View Sites Trail

The Far View Sites Trail at Mesa Verde National Park is a 1 mile loop that has several large pueblo structures to see and a water management reservoir. There are several large structures here within a very short distance.

The Far View sites could be a National Monument on their own if they weren’t part of the greater Mesa Verde community. The Far View Trail is on Chapin Mesa along the main park road, a short distance past the Far View Visitor Center.

The trail starts in a plaza between the impressive Far View House to the north and Pipe Shrine House to the south. There are several interpretive signs and a trail guide available. The Far View name was inspired by the commanding view of the surrounding Four Corners country side.

The Far View site was two stories and has 40 rooms on the ground floor. The large size of the structure suggests that Far View Houses may have been a public building, where leaders addressed the needs of the larger community. This was one of the most densely populated areas of Mesa Verde.

On the south side of the plaza is Pipe Shrine House, named for a dozen decorated clay pipes found in a kiva.

Pipe Shrine House has 20 rooms on the ground floor and may have had a second story. At Pipe Shrine House the interpretive information points out the differences in building styles of the walls. The single course walls on the north side contrast with the double course construction on the south side.

The double course construction is a later style, and is probably associated with multiple stories. The environment here is Pinon Pine and Juniper trees mixed with the aromatic Big Sage Brush on a mesa top setting, with good canyon views a short distance away.

Walking around the south end of Pipe Shrine House the view back towards Far View House gives a feeling for how busy this area must have been. Look for a spiral petroglyph in one of the building stones on the back side of Pipe Shrine House.

A little north along the trail is Far View Tower. This site has 16 small one story rooms, three kivas and a round tower. The single story rooms are single course construction but the tower is double course. The function of towers is a mystery. Modern Pueblo People still use kivas but not towers. There are nearly 60 towers at Mesa Verde. This one doesn't appear to be positioned as a lookout point, as some of them are. Sometimes there are tunnels connecting towers to kivas.

A little bit off the trail to the east there are far views across the canyon toward the LaPlata Mountains that are between Mesa Verde and the Durango area.

Far View Reservoir, formerly called Mummy Lake is one of four constructed reservoirs at Mesa Verde and the only one that is accessible. The alcove sites often have seep springs or the canyon bottom creeks for water supply but a mesa top site would have had to try to store the snow melt and summer storm water. The clay rich soil here probably compacted well to seal the bottom, but the evaporation is high in the sunny southwest.

Earth lagoons are common in this region. It seems like the rock walls surrounding the lake would have been more to prevent erosion around the edges than to hold water. The sandstone itself is porous and the mortar would have leaked if constantly exposed to water.

I was surprised to see that the American Society of Civil Engineers presented an award in 2004 to the Mummy Lake reservoir built 700 years ago. There is a constructed channel that collects water from the uphill area to the north.

Water is diverted into the reservoir in a way that allows the silt to settle in the channel, leaving the reservoir water fit for drinking.

Further north the trail leads to Megalithic House, named for the larger stones used. Megalithic stones are also visible at Long House on Wetherill Mesa.

The trail loops back south to Coyote Village. The interpretive information here points out how the village grew over time. The clues for this are how the wall construction varies and how the wall joints are arranged.

The Coyote Village has 30 ground floor rooms, five kivas, and a circular tower. This site is just to the south of the Far View House and can be an overlooked site on an overlooked trail. This is a site where the arrangement of walls is observable. Some walls are tied together and some just abut one another, indicating original construction and later add on building.

There is a vague trail along the east side of Far View House that gives views into Soda Canyon from the Chapin Mesa rim. Following this trail to the south leads to some of the 50 or so unexcavated villages that were part of the Far View Community. At least one appears as a large rubble pile and there are smaller less conspicuous sites.