Ancient America Preserved: Our Review of Mesa Verde National Park

Mesa Verde National Park has been on our list of must-do’s while living in Colorado. Being located in the remote southwest corner of the state, it was an easy addition to our big circle road trip that would further take us to the Four Corners, the national parks of Moab, and into Colorado National Monument.

It was a stop that was well worth it, and looking back, we would have been happy to make the drive down to this stunning part of Colorado for this park alone. Mesa Verde preserves Native American village remnants, with its claim to fame being the Puebloan “cliff dwellings.” They are literally stone villages built into cliffside ledges, breathtakingly preserved, and they are absolutely fascinating.

The park has all kinds of other ruins from times well before this place was America, as well as scenic hikes and panoramic views. We spent nearly a full day here taking everything in before heading to the Four Corners for a quick four-state stop.

It is essential to plan your visit to Mesa Verde properly – the best experiences involve guided tours that require advance tickets, and they don’t take place year-round! Read our advice below to make your trip as smooth and enjoyable as possible.

Quick Summary: Seeing Mesa Verde National Park

• Mesa Verde is in the southwest corner of Colorado – the park entrance is about 15 minutes from the town of Cortez or 40 minutes from Durango
  • However, the main attractions of Mesa Verde are about 40 minutes from the park entrance, so plan your arrival properly
• The top attractions of Mesa Verde are the Puebloan cliff dwellings: they can be seen from viewpoints on the rim, or you can actually go down into them on a ranger-guided tour
  • Ranger-guided tours should be considered a top priority: they run from May to October and require advance tickets via recreation.gov
• The Mesa Top Loop scenic drive is another awesome thing to do and will reveal more Native American ruins plus hikes and views
• Plan for at least half a day in the park, but a full day will allow you to see most attractions more leisurely
  • If you need an add-on, Four Corners Monument is about an hour from the park entrance; there are several other National Monuments nearby, too

Overview: Why Visit Mesa Verde National Park & Top Things to Do There

Mesa Verde National Park is located in one of the most history-rich regions of the United States. The history here, though, goes much further back than the colonial past of places on the East Coast. The Four Corners area contained dozens of population centers of Native Americans, collectively known as Puebloan peoples, who had shared cultures and practices.

For centuries, these Puebloans had a unique tradition in building entire communities directly on the sides of cliffs. The rugged terrain of this southwestern region includes shallow caves in the cliffsides, creating natural roof coverage for anyone who could get to these spots. The Native Americans seemed to be experts at this and built hundreds of these communities in Mesa Verde alone, and many remain in exceptional condition.

You can see a bunch of these cliff dwellings from the road at the top of the mesa, and they are fascinating. But even more fascinating are the ranger-guided tours that take you directly into them. Here are some of the park’s most notable dwellings:

• Cliff Palace – The most famous and most photographed landmark in the park, which offers an easy-to-moderate tour.
• Balcony House – Another exceptionally preserved example with tours offered, but visits involve more strenuous access paths.
• Long House – An example on the quieter, less-visited side of the park, also available to tour.
• Spruce Tree House – One of the best-preserved examples in the park, which can only be viewed from the outside and is conveniently close to the museum.
• Step House – A unique stop in that your visit is self-guided, with a ranger available inside to answer questions.

You can simply drive along the roads like Mesa Top Loop or Mesa Top Ruins Road, or hike near the museum or Weatherill Mesa, if you just want to see these dwellings from the outside (or couldn’t manage to get tour tickets). But there is plenty more to see along the way besides the dwelling viewpoints:

• Mesa Verde Museum – Learn more about the culture and history of this place and see real artifacts that have been preserved.
• Pithouses and Villages – On the mesa top, more non-cliff dwelling ruins have been found and preserved, including traditional pit houses and other accessories that went with them.
• The Sun Temple – An elaborate stone building built near the mesa’s edge whose purpose is not entirely understood.
• Hikes – We did Soda Canyon Overlook and Park Point Lookout, which were great.

As you can see, there are a ton of things to do and places to see in Mesa Verde National Park. You could spend as little as an hour or two here or as much as multiple days. We thought a full day was just right for travelers who want to see a little of everything and don’t mind starting early.

Planning a Trip to Mesa Verde National Park: Tours, Tickets, and Timing

As we said, the crown jewels of Mesa Verde National Park lie in the ranger-guided tours of the cliff dwellings. As stunning as they are to see from the outside, you can actually go down into these islands of history with proper planning.

Tours are seasonal and only run from May through October, so you’ll have to visit in the late spring to early fall period if you are looking for this experience. That’s the best time to visit anyway. You’ll also have to set a calendar reminder: you can only secure tickets two weeks in advance. Go back 14 days from the day you want to visit – at 8:00am Colorado time, tickets will be released on recreation.gov for that day.

Picking the Right Tour Time

While any time of day is probably going to be great, we have two important notes about the ticket you select:

1. The first tour of the day has advantages. It’s really not that early (usually 9:00am), so it doesn’t involve being sleep-deprived. In the summer, it will still be nice and cool at this hour (maybe even cold). But most importantly, you will get to see the dwellings without anyone else there – the other tours come one after another, and their view of the dwellings will include another tour group. This is a great opportunity to take pictures without intruders and to see the dwellings empty!

2. But, keep in mind that dwellings are 40 minutes or more from the park entrance. Make sure you calculate drive times appropriately in this case and leave early enough. We stayed in Durango, which was 40 minutes from the park entrance. We left our hotel almost 2 hours before our tour time to be certain that we would make it. So, while the first tour of the day is awesome, factor in your drive time!

We just so happened to choose the first tour of the day, and we were so glad that we did, even if it meant getting up early. We didn’t even realize the advantage we had until we were there. But make sure you have enough time to drive your way through the park!

Which Cliff Dwelling Tours to Do at Mesa Verde National Park?

The park advertises four ranger-guided cliff dwelling tours and one self-guided opportunity. The one(s) you select will be based on the time you have available and your hiking abilities, as some are quite difficult to access. You’ll also have to consider your ability to secure reservations in advance, as tickets do sell out.

Cliff Palace

Cliff Palace is the most famous one in the park and the largest cliff dwelling in North America. It is also the “poster child” example photo that you’ll probably see when researching Mesa Verde, and it’s found all over media about the park. Therefore, this is a prime tour choice, especially for first-timers and people who can only choose one tour.

This was the one tour we decided to do, and as mentioned, we did the first one of the day, which gave us photo and viewing opportunities without any other tour groups inside. The hike down is easy, just requiring some stairs, which are admittedly a bit narrow. The way back up is a little more complicated, as you do have to climb a ladder or two. There were some very old and very young people doing it, so if you are even moderately fit, you should be fine.

We learned all about the community, which was built about a thousand years ago, and its uses at that time. We got to look into a real kiva and imagine what it must have been like back then. Our ranger was very knowledgeable about the history and culture and he was enthusiastic about sharing it. The whole experience lasted about 45 minutes.

There’s a fantastic viewpoint of Cliff Palace at the tour’s starting point, which can be accessed even by visitors without tickets. If you can’t manage to secure a reservation, you should at least go see it from there. Even better if it’s before tours start!

Balcony House

Just down the road from Cliff Palace, Balcony House is the next most popular tour in the park. However, it is much more strenuous. It requires more ladder-climbing, plus crawling through tunnels and climbing cliffsides. We didn’t do this tour due to time constraints, but we would like to go back for it. 

We did, however, hike out to a viewpoint to see Balcony House from above. The tours start directly above it, so you won’t be able to look down from the road and see it. You can instead drive a bit further and hike the Soda Canyon Overlook Trail to catch a glimpse of it from afar. It’s an easy and rather short hike that we found to be worth it. 

Weatherill Mesa Area – Long House and Step House

This section of the park is quieter and more remote from the main areas. It may be worth adding an extra day to your trip if you plan to come out here, as it’s nearly 90 minutes from the park entrance. Note that the opening season of this side is shorter, and it is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Proper planning is important to visit Weatherill Mesa.

Long House is an off-the-beaten-path tour that totals more than two miles of hiking and some ladder-climbing. It is a ranger-guided visit that takes about two hours in total, but should be well worth it for visitors who truly want to see it all. Nearby, you can visit Step House without any tour or reservation, making it the only site in the park freely accessible. A ranger is posted inside to answer questions.

Backcountry Tours – Square Tower House

Finally, if you really want to go where few tourists go, try to snag a reservation for a backcountry tour of Square Tower House. Many visitors will view it from above, but once per day, very small groups (maximum 10 people) can be led by rangers down the rugged cliffside into this site.

Square Tower House features the tallest standing structure in the park, original paint and art, and an intact kiva roof, making it unlike any other dwelling in Mesa Verde. The two-hour tour will be strenuous, but rewarding for those who can do it.

Other Cliff Dwellings and Places to Visit in Mesa Verde National Park

While those are the cliff dwellings that feature tours to access, they are certainly not the only ones in the park – Mesa Verde features more than 600 cliff dwelling sites. You can view more from the scenic drives and hiking trails.

And besides the cliff dwellings, there are numerous other things to do in Mesa Verde, such as other Native American historic sites and hikes. Most of our day here was spent driving the rim roads and stopping at these attractions.

Chapin Mesa Area: Spruce Tree House, The Mesa Verde Museum, and Spruce Tree Terrace Café

Spruce Tree House is an exceptionally preserved dwelling and the third-largest in the park. It is conveniently close to the park’s museum and restaurant and accessible via a trail down into the canyon. It descends about 100 feet and is only a half-mile round-trip, providing very picturesque views into the dwelling.

Just above the Spruce Tree House hike is the park’s museum. It was under some renovations and reorganizations when we visited, as the park attempts to create an experience with more input from Puebloan people, but you can still see some very cool artifacts and stories about the Mesa Verde area. You can also get your national park passport stamp here.

Across the street from the museum is the only real restaurant in the park, which makes for an excellent lunch stop. Therefore, it may be a good idea to plan to visit the Chapin Mesa area in the middle of your day. We got the Navajo Taco, which was made with traditional fry bread. It was huge and very tasty.

Mesa Top Loop: Pithouses, Villages, and Other Sites

Driving Mesa Top Loop is a must-do and very convenient if you’re doing one of the major tours. It offers several stops at preserved non-cliff dwelling Native American sites, especially Pithouses and other village components. These are directly off the loop road and do not require any hiking.

The sites have been covered with roofs to help preserve them and informational signs will tell you what you are looking at. It is amazing to see how advanced these people were hundreds of years ago, as the “pits” that formed their residences included so much more than that. 

Mesa Top Loop: Cliff Dwelling Viewpoints

One of the first stops on Mesa Top Loop is the viewpoint for Square Tower House. It’s a very quick (maybe two minutes) trail to reach the viewpoint, and it’s worth it, since most visitors aren’t doing the backcountry hike to visit this site up close. Square Tower house is very large and beautiful to look at from above.

Sun Point View is about halfway through the drive and offers a view of the famous Cliff Palace from the other side of the mesa rim. It is worth a stop here to get another perspective of the dwellings, whether before or after your tour of it.

After that come stops for Oak Tree House and Fire Temple. These are smaller cliff dwellings, but they are definitely not less impressive. They don’t require any hiking and are simple stops on the side of the drive.

Sun Temple

Finally, your last stop on Mesa Top Loop would be Sun Temple, which is on its own little one-way loop. There is no real hiking required for this one. It’s a clifftop stone building with multiple rooms and passageways, and archaeologists really don’t know what its purpose was. Still, it’s pretty cool.

Mesa Top Ruins Loop: Lookouts and Soda Canyon Overlook Hike

This is the loop road that Cliff Palace and Balcony House are located on. While it doesn’t have nearly as many stops as Mesa Top Loop, it’s still a nice drive with a few important ones – including the main lookouts for those two dwellings. There’s also a stop for House of Many Windows.

Park Point Overlook Trail

As you drive through the main road of Mesa Verde, you will notice a ton of lookout stops to enjoy the view from high on the mesa. They are all lovely, but for us, Park Point is a single stop that takes care of the views. It’s a little less than halfway in from the highway and visitor’s center. 

This is the highest point in the park. It was once the location of a ranger outpost to monitor for fires, but technology has taken the need away to have a person posted all the way up there. Instead, hikers can now do the short (but steep) trail to enjoy the 360-degree panoramic views of the mesa.

Mesa Verde Visitor & Research Center

The visitor center is out by the park entrance, making it a logical first stop for many visitors. But since we had to enter the park early to make the first Cliff Palace tour of the day, it wasn’t open when we arrived. So we visited this last, on our way out.

This visitor center is one of the most expansive and modern that we have ever seen. They did an amazing job with the exhibits and educational displays. It’s a great place to learn more about the cliff dwellings and Puebloan ruins, whether you do it first or last. We made sure to get our obligatory passport stamp and souvenirs from here before leaving.

Where to Stay for Mesa Verde National Park

If you want to stay within Mesa Verde National Park, it offers both campsites and a hotel, the Far View Lodge, which looks lovely. The lodge has three restaurants and it would be great to be in the park after dark to see the night sky.

However, we like to focus on hotels that earn us points and status, so our options were outside the park. In the town of Cortez, which is only 15 minutes from the park entrance, there’s a Holiday Inn Express, which offers its signature free breakfast and easy access to Mesa Verde.

But since we were coming from the east and attempted to maximize nights at Marriott properties, we went with the SpringHill Suites Durango. It was about a 40-minute drive to the park, but it was worth it for the shorter drive the night before and the progress towards our elite status. They had a good free breakfast and nice, clean rooms.

Other Additions to a Mesa Verde National Park Trip

There is so much to do in this corner of America. For us, it wasn’t a question of what else we could find to do over there – it was more about what we leave out from this trip. In the end, we went with a visit to the Four Corners Monument, where the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet. 

It was a cool place to see and had tasty Navajo fry bread, but it was very quick, and overall underwhelming. We are glad to have done it and checked it off our list, but it’s definitely a quick, less-than-an-hour stop on a road trip than a destination itself.

Other places to consider adding to a Mesa Verde vacation include:

• Pagosa Springs Hot Springs 
• Canyon of the Ancients National Monument
• Chimney Rock National Monument
• Hovenweep National Monument
• The Million Dollar Highway (between Durango and Ouray)

These are all within 1-2 hours of the park, and frankly, the list could grow by dozens if you expand further than that. 

Conclusion: The Verdict on Mesa Verde National Park

We loved Mesa Verde and would strongly recommend it to anyone headed to the Four Corners region who is remotely interested in nature, history, and cool stuff in general. There wasn’t anything on our trip that we felt wasn’t worth it – in fact, we wish we had more time to see other parts of the park.

We will probably be back in the area because of the other national monuments and things to do that we had to leave out. Next time, we’ll head to the more remote Weatherill Mesa section and try to get tour tickets for less-visited dwellings. However, even if you just have a day, the Cliff Palace-Mesa Top Loop route is definitely worth it!

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