Mesa Verde National Park

Mesa Verde protects the remarkable cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloans, stone villages built into the sheltered alcoves of canyon walls in south-western Colorado around eight hundred years ago, then mysteriously abandoned. A UNESCO site, its Cliff Palace and other dwellings offer an extraordinary window onto a sophisticated ancient culture.

Background

The name is Spanish for "green table". Set aside as a park in 1906, it covers 52,485 acres in Montezuma County and holds more than 5,000 sites, 600 of them cliff dwellings, so no archaeological preserve in the country is larger. Paleo-Indians of the Foothills Mountain Complex used the mesa seasonally from about 7500 BCE. The Basketmaker culture had appeared by 1000 BCE, and the Ancestral Puebloans grew out of it by 750 CE. Their first pueblos here date from sometime after 650, and work on the great cliff dwellings began at the end of the 12th century. By 1285, after long and severe droughts, the people had moved south to Arizona and New Mexico.

Source: Wikipedia, "Mesa Verde National Park"

What you'll find

• Cliff Palace - the largest cliff dwelling, a stone village under a great alcove.
• Balcony House and Long House - other dwellings, entered on ranger-led tours.
• Mesa-top sites - the earlier pit houses and villages on the plateau.
• The canyon setting - the dwellings tucked into the sheer canyon walls.

When to go

The warm months from late spring to autumn, when the ranger-led tours to the dwellings run; winter closes much of the access. Book the ticketed cliff-dwelling tours ahead.

Good to know

The best dwellings, Cliff Palace and Balcony House, are seen only on ranger-led tours that book up and involve ladders, steep steps and confined spaces. It is remote in south-western Colorado. It is a sacred ancestral place to Pueblo peoples, so treat it with respect.

Nearby

Durango and the Four Corners are nearby; the ancient sites of Chaco and Canyon de Chelly lie across the region.

Key facts