Top 10 things to do in Mesa Verde National Park

Mesa Verde National Park, in southwestern Colorado, protects the homes and villages of the Ancestral Pueblo people who lived on these mesas for some 700 years, from about AD 550 to 1300. In their last century here they built nearly 600 cliff dwellings in the alcoves of the canyon walls, some with more than a hundred rooms, before moving south to the Pueblo villages where their descendants live today. It was the first national park set aside to protect the works of people, and it is a World Heritage Site. These are the ten outings we would put first. The order starts with what the park is known for, then goes by what an outing gives back for the time and effort it takes. Distances are approximate; times are our estimates and do not include stops.

The park sits at 7,000 to 8,500 feet (2,100 to 2,600 m), so the air is thin and the sun strong: carry water and take the climbs slowly. The ranger-led cliff-dwelling tours climb ladders and steps, sometimes with exposure, and need tickets bought ahead. These are sacred places to the Pueblo peoples: never touch, sit or lean on the walls, and take nothing away. Summer afternoons bring thunderstorms with lightning on the open mesa tops.

1. Tour Cliff Palace

Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America, a village of about 150 rooms and 23 kivas, the round ceremonial chambers, tucked under a great overhang of sandstone and built of shaped stone blocks and mortar. A ranger leads small groups down stone steps and short ladders into the site itself, explaining how people farmed the mesa tops above, carried water and lived in the alcove. The view of it from across the canyon, from the Cliff Palace Loop Road, is the classic picture of Mesa Verde.

• Allow: 1 hour for the tour
• Start: Cliff Palace overlook, on the Cliff Palace Loop Road on Chapin Mesa
• When: tours run from spring to fall; buy tickets ahead
• Suits: most walkers who can climb short ladders and steps

2. Drive the Mesa Top Loop Road

This short loop on Chapin Mesa follows the story of the people of Mesa Verde through time, from pithouses dug into the ground around AD 600 to stone villages on the mesa top and, finally, the cliff dwellings, with a short walk from the car at each stop. Overlooks look across the canyons to the dwellings in their alcoves, among them Square Tower House, with the tallest structure in the park, a tower four stories high, and Sun Point, where a dozen cliff dwellings can be seen at once.

• Distance: about 6 miles (10 km) loop
• Allow: 1.5 to 2 hours
• Start: Chapin Mesa, south of the museum
• When: all year, weather permitting
• Suits: everyone

3. Climb into Balcony House

Balcony House is the most adventurous of the cliff-dwelling tours. To reach this mid-sized village perched on a ledge high above Soda Canyon, you climb a 32-foot (10 m) wooden ladder up the cliff, crawl through a tunnel barely wide enough for your shoulders, and climb out by more ladders and toeholds cut in the rock. The view from inside, out over the canyon, shows how well defended the site was.

• Allow: 1 hour for the tour
• Start: Balcony House parking area, on the Cliff Palace Loop Road
• When: tours run from spring to fall; buy tickets ahead
• Suits: those comfortable with heights, tall ladders and tight spaces

4. Walk down to Step House on Wetherill Mesa

Wetherill Mesa, reached by a long, winding road west of the main part of the park, is quieter than Chapin Mesa. Step House, the one cliff dwelling in the park you can visit without a guide, sits there in a large alcove, with a ranger on hand. Under one overhang are both pithouses from about AD 600 and stone rooms from the 1200s, along with the prehistoric stone steps that give it its name.

• Distance: about 1 mile (1.6 km) round trip
• Climb: about 100 feet (30 m) back up
• Allow: 45 minutes, plus the drive
• Start: Wetherill Mesa parking area, at the end of the Wetherill Mesa Road
• When: summer, when the Wetherill Mesa Road is open
• Suits: most walkers

5. Join the Long House tour

Long House is the second-largest cliff dwelling in the park, with about 150 rooms and 21 kivas in a single long alcove, and a seep spring at the back where the people collected water. The ranger-led tour from Wetherill Mesa is the longest of the cliff-dwelling tours, with a walk to the site and ladders to climb inside it, and it is far quieter than the tours on Chapin Mesa.

• Distance: about 2.25 miles (3.6 km) round trip
• Allow: about 2 hours for the tour
• Start: Wetherill Mesa parking area
• When: summer; buy tickets ahead
• Suits: fit walkers who can climb ladders

6. Visit the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum and see Spruce Tree House

The park’s original museum, built of stone in the 1920s, holds pottery, baskets, tools and dioramas that show how the people of Mesa Verde lived, and it is the best place to understand what you see at the dwellings. From the patio behind it, an overlook looks into the canyon at Spruce Tree House, the third-largest cliff dwelling in the park and one of the best preserved, tucked into its alcove beside a spring.

• Allow: 1 hour
• Start: Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum
• When: all year; the museum keeps seasonal hours
• Suits: everyone

7. Hike the Petroglyph Point Trail

From near the museum, this trail runs along a ledge below the rim of Spruce Canyon, through pinyon and juniper, past overhangs and boulders, to the largest and best-known panel of petroglyphs in the park, carved into a sandstone wall. It then climbs a short, steep scramble with stone steps to the mesa top and returns through the woods. It is the best hike on Chapin Mesa.

• Distance: about 2.4 miles (3.9 km) loop
• Allow: 2 hours
• Start: Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum
• When: spring to fall
• Suits: steady walkers comfortable on narrow ledges and short scrambles

8. See Sun Temple

On the mesa top across the canyon from Cliff Palace stands Sun Temple, a large D-shaped building of thick double walls with no doors and no sign that anyone lived in it. It was probably a ceremonial site, perhaps never finished, and its walls line up with the sun at the solstices, which gives it its name. The overlook beside it also gives one of the best views across the canyon to Cliff Palace and other dwellings.

• Allow: 20 minutes
• Start: Sun Temple parking, on the Mesa Top Loop Road
• When: all year, weather permitting
• Suits: everyone

9. Stop at Park Point

Halfway along the road from the entrance to Chapin Mesa, a short spur climbs to Park Point, the highest point in the park, at about 8,570 feet (2,610 m), where a fire lookout stands on the summit. A short walk leads to the top, with a view across the whole Four Corners region: the La Plata Mountains, Shiprock in New Mexico, the mountains of Utah and Arizona, and the long slope of the mesa falling away to the south.

• Distance: a short walk from the parking area
• Allow: 20 minutes
• Start: Park Point, off the main park road
• When: spring to fall
• Suits: everyone

10. Walk to the Soda Canyon Overlook

This short, easy trail through pinyon and juniper woodland on Chapin Mesa leads to the rim of Soda Canyon, with views down the canyon and across to Balcony House on its ledge. It is a quiet walk for those who do not have a tour ticket, and a good one at the end of the day, when the low sun lights up the canyon walls.

• Distance: about 1.2 miles (1.9 km) round trip
• Allow: 45 minutes
• Start: Soda Canyon Overlook trailhead, on the Cliff Palace Loop Road
• When: spring to fall
• Suits: most walkers

Before you go

This list covers what stays the same from year to year. Closures, tour dates and ticket rules, and road opening dates change, and the National Park Service posts them on its own site. The link is on our Mesa Verde National Park guide, with the map and how to get there.