Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

Our next national park, Mesa Verde National Park, is one we have both wanted to visit for a long time! It did not disappoint. This park is one of the few national parks that is more culturally focused than nature focused. Fun fact: Mesa Verde was the 7th national park to be designated.

Mesa Verde National Park protects 5,000 archeological sites of ancestral Pueblo peoples, including the famous cliff dwellings but also mesa top dwellings and other remnants of these incredible communities.

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Hiking

We didn't do much hiking in this park because dogs are not allowed on trails. However, we were able to hike around the mesa top dwellings and to the cliff dwelling overlooks to count this as a park we've hiked in. There are plenty of easy trails that venture around the mesa top communities. Our favorite was probably this one with Coyote Village. The trail went between various aspects of the community, including a water holding structure and several multi-family dwellings like this picture.

The park is full of interpretive signs (in English and in Spanish) that tell stories of the residents of the communities. They also share information about the work National Park Service anthropologists do to preserve and uncover the dwellings. There's a ton of information on the Mesa Verde National Park website if you want to learn more. We suggest learning a little bit before you go so you can spend more time appreciating and imagining what the ancestral Pueblo culture was like.

Unfortunately, we were at the park a few weeks before their season. None of the cliff dwelling tours were operating. Five cliff dwellings are only accessible to enter during a ranger-led tour. Tour tickets can be purchased on the website in advance of your visit to the park. There is one cliff dwelling that you can enter without purchasing a ticket. However, a Durango-based conservation corps was doing trail work on the approach trail so we were not able to enter. That didn't stop us from having great views of the dwelling through our camera and binoculars!

This dwelling can be entered for free via a paved trail from the parking area, but it was closed for trail maintenance. A big thank you to the conservation corps for keeping the park beautiful, well protected, and safe for all visitors.

This cliff dwelling cannot be entered by visitors. This picture was taken from a great overlook just a short walk from a parking area along the Mesa Top Loop road through the park. The tall tower in the right of the image is the tallest structure the National Park Service has found within park boundaries. Anthropologists have carefully reinforced this structure to preserve it for visitor viewing and education.

Camping

Because we visited the park out of season, only one camping loop was open and it was first-come, first-served. We snagged a spot with a flat parking area so the van would be fairly level. We had beautiful weather the two days we were in the park so we didn't really spend much time in the van anyway. The campground got pretty busy - we were there on a Friday night and camping was only $20 so we figured it would be full. The sites were big and we didn't feel close to our neighbors. It was quiet.

Our second morning at the park we packed up the van, took a short run around the campground, and found a shower. Yes, a shower! It was our first true shower since we left on the road from Texas over a week ago. Clean and full of coffee, we headed out to our next stop!

Mesa Verde shocked and awed us beyond what we could have imagined. Not only were the dwellings amazing, we learned so much and got to appreciate views of snow-capped peaks on the southern Rockies. We can't wait to come back and take a tour of the cliff dwellings. We're thinking about that 8-hour, 8-mile guided hike into one of the more secluded dwellings in the next few years!