Established by Congress on June 29, 1906, Mesa Verde was the first cultural park set aside in the National Park System. Mesa Verde National Park was also designated a World Cultural Heritage Site on September 8, 1978, by UNESCO, an United Nations organization formed to preserve and protect both the cultural and natural heritage of designated international sites.

Mesa Verde, Spanish for "green table," offers an unparalleled opportunity to see and experience a unique cultural landscape. Visitors walk through cliff dwellings and numerous mesa-top villages built by Ancestral Pueblo people between A.D. 600 and A.D. 1300. These pre-Columbian cliff dwellings and other works of early people are the most notable and best preserved in the United States.

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General Information

Park established: June 29, 1906.
Boundary changes: June 30, 1913; May 27,1932; Dec. 23, 1963.
Wilderness designation: Oct. 20, 1976.
Designated a World Heritage Site: Sept. 6, 1978.
Total acreage: 52,121.93: federal, 51,890.65; nonfederal, 231.28; wilderness area, 8,100.

Address and Phone

Mesa Verde National Park
Mesa Verde National Park, CO 81330
(970) 529-4465

Permits and Fees

Entrance fee is $10 per vehicle. Tickets are required for Balcony House and Cliff Palace tours. Tickets can be purchased for a small fee at the visitor center.

Golden Eagle Passport

The Golden Eagle Passport is an entrance pass to any national park, monument, historical site, recreation area, and national wildlife refuge that charges an entrance fee. It is a great convenience for those who plan on visiting several different areas that charge special fees. It is valid for one year from the purchase date. A Golden Eagle Passport may be purchased for $50 at any National Park Service entrance fee area or by mail. To order by mail, send check or money order (no cash, please) to:

National Park Service
1100 Ohio Drive, SW
Room 138
Washington, DC 20242
Attention: Golden Eagle Passport

Where entry is by private vehicle, the Golden Eagle Passport will admit the passholder as well as any passengers. Where entry by private vehicle is not possible, the pass will admit the passholder, spouse, children and parents.

The Golden Eagle Passport will not reduce use fees, such as those for camping, swimming, parking, boat launching, or cave tours. It covers entrance fees only.

Golden Age Passport

The Golden Age Passport is a lifetime entrance pass for those United States residents 62 years or older. These may be purchased at any National Park Service entrance fee area for a one-time processing fee of $10. The Golden Age Passport cannot be purchased by mail or telephone. Proof of age and citizenship or permanent residence must be shown at the time of purchase.

The Golden Age Passport will admit the passholder and any passengers in a private vehicle. When entrance is not via private vehicle, the pass will admit the passholder as well as children, spouse, and parents.

The Golden Age Pass grants a 50% discount to the holder on any federal use fees charged for things such as camping, swimming, parking, boat launching, or tours. It does not, however, reduce the price of special recreation permit fees or fees for concessions.

Golden Access Passport

The Golden Access Passport is a free entrance pass to any national park, monument, historic site, recreation area, and national wildlife refuge for those who are blind or permanently disabled. The Golden Access passport may be obtained at any National Park Service entrance fee area. Proof of a medically determined disability and eligibility for receiving benefits under federal law is necessary at purchase.

The Golden Access Passport will admit the passholder and any passengers in a private vehicle. Where entrance is not by vehicle, the pass will admit the passholder, spouse, children and parents.

The Golden Access Passport also provides a 50% discount on any federal use fees charged for services and facilities. It does not cover special recreation permit fees or fees charged for concessions.

All passes described above are non-transferable.

Hours

The museum and Spruce Tree House cliff dwelling are open all year. The Cliff Palace and Balcony House ruins are closed from approximately mid-October to mid-April. The Wetherill Mesa ruins are open from Memorial Day through Labor Day. The Far View Visitor Center is open during the summer from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Chapin Mesa Museum is open from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. during the summer and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. the rest of the year.

Camping and Lodging

Morefield Campground is open to tents and trailers from mid-April through mid-October. No reservations are accepted. Standard sites are $10 per night and hook-up sites are $17 per night (very limited availability). Morefield has restrooms, and each site has a table, benches and grills. Lodging is available at Far View Lodge, which is closed in winter. Reservations can be made by contacting the Mesa Verde Co., PO Box 227, Mancos, CO 81328, (303) 529-4421.

General Information and Visit Recommendations

The entrance to Mesa Verde National Park is 9 miles east of Cortez and 35 miles west of Durango in southwestern Colorado on U.S. Highway 160. Park information is available at the entrance. Visitors will see the beautiful canyons and plateaus of Mesa Verde as they continue into the park. Overlooks provide views of the valleys below, including the towns of Cortez and Mancos. Vehicles are permitted only on roads, turnouts and parking areas. Hiking is restricted to established park trails. Mountain bikes are not permitted on trails. Late May and June is when biting gnats are plentiful. Because the trails are primitive you will need to wear sturdy hiking shoes.

Take a few minutes to plan your Mesa Verde Adventure

From the entrance station near U.S. Highway 160, it is 21 miles to the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum, Headquarters area and Spruce Tree House cliff dwelling. You will be driving a winding mountain road. Allow an hour's driving time depending on weather and traffic conditions. It is a scenic trip with spectacular views into four states. Watch for deer and wild turkeys that may be along the road at any time.

Visitors should plan to spend at least three to four hours at Mesa Verde. Two hours will be drive time into and out of the park. Your first stop should be at the Far View Visitor Center (open during the spring, summer, and fall), located 15 miles from the park entrance, for information and orientation. From there visit the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum and Spruce Tree House. If you have just a few hours, drive to one of the Mesa Top Loop roads. The wayside exhibits and the canyon overlooks offer a glimpse of the Mesa Verde story. Highlights of the loop for those pressed for time would be the Square Tower House Overlook, Twin Trees site and Sun Temple. These could be completed if you have half a day to visit the park.

Stop at the Far View Visitor Center for park information and to orient yourself. Purchase tickets for the Cliff Palace or Balcony House tour (open mid-May through October) if you wish to see those sites. Visit the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum and Spruce Tree House. Drive the Mesa Top Loop Road to learn the chronological story of Mesa Verde. Plan to fit in either the Cliff Palace or Balcony House tour and take the time to stop at the overlooks on the Cliff Palace Loop Road. As you leave Chapin Mesa, stop at Cedar Tree Tower and perhaps consider the .5 mile hike on the Farming Terrace Trail or further up the road, enjoy visiting and learning about the Far View Complex of sites, which were inhabited for about three centuries. Investigate the hiking opportunities. From the headquarters area you may take the Petroglyph Point Trail (2.3 miles) or the Spruce Tree Canyon Trail (2.1 miles). From the Cliff Palace Loop Road there is also the Soda Canyon Overlook Trail (.75 mile) which offers the opportunity to view Balcony House from across the canyon (Binoculars are helpful from this overlook). Then take the time to stop and enjoy Cedar Tree Tower and the Farming Terrace Trail (1.2 miles).

On the second day stop at the Far View Visitor Center for tickets to Cliff Palace or Balcony House depending on what you visited the day before. Drive the Mesa Top Loop Road and plan this around your ticketed tour of the day. Later in the day would also be a great opportunity to visit the Far View Complex of sites. Take a hike on one of the trails in the headquarters area or plan a hike near Morefield Campground on the Prater Ridge Trail (7.5 miles) or the Knife Edge Trail (1.5 miles). Take the time also as you drive in and out of the park to enjoy the overlooks, the wayside exhibits and especially Park Point, which offers a sweeping panoramic view of four states.

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History

Overview

Mesa Verde National Park was established in 1906 to preserve archeological sites built by early Native Americans atop mesas and in the alcoves of rugged canyons. The park, containing 52,073 acres of federal land, is part of the National Park System and is administered by the National Park Service of the Department of the Interior.

Mesa Verde, Spanish for "green table," rises high above the surrounding country. For about 1,000 years Native Americans farmed the mesa and surrounding regions. From the hundreds of dwellings that remain, archeologists have reconstructed one of the most significant chapters in the story of prehistoric America.

The World of the Mesa Verde People

In the mid-1200s, the village across the canyon from Spruce Tree House was one of the largest in Mesa Verde. It boasted 114 rooms and eight kivas, underground chambers used for religious ceremonies. Approximately 100 people may have lived in the village. Hundreds of years earlier, their ancestors probably lived in pithouses in the area. Construction techniques show the villagers were experienced builders. The walls are tall and straight, laid with carefully cut stone. The busiest time of the year for the villagers was probably autumn, when the harvest was underway. Some gleaned the fields, while others spread crops on a rooftop to dry, providing stores to see them through the long winter or even into the next year or two if there was a drought. Women made pottery and ground corn.

About 1,400 years ago, long before European exploration of the New World, a group of people living in the Four Corners region chose Mesa Verde for their home. For more than 700 years, their descendants lived and flourished here, building elaborate stone communities in the sheltered alcoves of the canyon walls. In the late 1200s, within one or two generations, they left their homes and moved away.

Mesa Verde National Park, which occupies part of a large plateau rising high above the Montezuma and Mancos valleys, is a spectacular reminder of this 1,000-year-old culture. Archeologists have named the people the "Anasazi," from a Navajo word meaning "the ancient enemies" They are now called Ancestral Puebloans, a reference to their descendents. Ever since local cowboys first saw the cliff dwellings a century ago, archeologists have been trying to understand the life the Anasazi. Despite decades of excavation, analysis, classification and comparison, knowledge of their culture remains sketchy, for they left no written records and much that was important in their lives has perished.

Yet the structures that remain speak eloquently of their culture. They tell of a people adept at building, artistic in their crafts, and skillful at making a living from a difficult land. The structures are evidence of a society that, over the centuries, developed skills and traditions and passed them from generation to generation. By classic times (A.D. 1100 to 1300), the people of Mesa Verde were heirs to a vigorous civilization, with accomplishments in community living and the arts that rank among the finest expressions of culture in America.

Working with nature, the Ancestral Puebloans built their dwellings under the overhanging cliffs using sandstone, which they shaped into rectangular blocks about the size of a loaf of bread. The mortar between the blocks was a mixture of mud and water. Rooms averaged about 6 by 8 feet, large enough for two or three people. Isolated rooms in the rear and on upper levels were generally used for storing crops.

Day-to-day activities took place in open courtyards in front of the rooms. Women most likely fashioned pottery there along with knives, axes, awls, and scrapers made of stone and bone. Fires built in summer were mainly for cooking. Winter fires provided much needed heat. Smoke-blackened walls and ceilings are reminders of the bitter cold the ancient cliff dwellers endured several months each year.

Clothing followed the seasons. In summer, adults probably wore loincloths and sandals. In winter they wore hides and skins and wrapped themselves in blankets made of turkey feathers and robes of rabbit fur.

The Ancestral Puebloans spent much of their time getting food, even in the best of years. Farming was their main occupation, but they supplemented crops of beans, corn, and squash by gathering wild plants and hunting deer, rabbits, squirrels, and other game. Their only domestic animals were dogs and turkeys.

The Ancestral Puebloans tossed their trash close by their dwellings. Scraps of food, broken pottery and tools, and anything else unwanted went down the slope in front of their homes. Much of what we know about their daily life comes from these garbage heaps.

Family

Archeology has yielded some information about the ancient people of Mesa Verde, but without a written record, there is no way to be sure about their social, political, or religious ideas. We must rely on comparisons to modern Pueblo people of New Mexico and Arizona. In classic times at Mesa Verde, several generations probably lived together as a household. Each family occupied several rooms and built additional ones as it grew. Several related families constituted a clan, which was probably matrilineal (descent traced through the female line) in organization. If the analogy with modern Hopi practice is correct, each clan had its own kiva, or underground chamber for religious observances, and rights to its own agricultural plots. Their skill as hunters and artisans are evident. The turkey was an important part of their economy. It was a source of food. Also, its feathers were used for weaving and its bones for tools.

Trade

Mesa Verde's economy was more complex than might appear at first glance. While principally an agricultural community, specialized skill in weaving, leather-working, making pottery, arrow points, jewelry, baskets, or sandals gave certain individuals a surplus of goods, which they probably shared or bartered with neighbors. This exchange went on between communities, too. Seashells from the Pacific coast, turquoise, pottery, and cotton from the south were some of the items that found their way to Mesa Verde, passed from village to village or carried by traders over a far-flung network of trails.

Basketry

The finest baskets produced by the Mesa Verde people were created before they learned to make pottery. Using spiral-twilled technique, they wove handsome baskets of many sizes and shapes for carrying water, storing grain, and even cooking. They waterproofed the baskets by lining them with pitch and cooked in them by dropping heated stones into the water. The most common coiling material was split willow but sometimes Rabbitbrush or Skunkbush was used. After the introduction of pottery about A.D. 550, the quality and quantity of baskets declined. The few baskets that survive from the Classic Period are inferior in quality to those made earlier.

Pottery

The people of Mesa Verde were accomplished potters. They made vessels of all kinds: pots, bowls, canteens, ladles, jars, and mugs. Corrugated ware was used mostly for cooking and storage. Elaborately decorated black on white ware may have had ceremonial, as well as everyday, uses. Women were probably the potters of the community. Their designs tended to be personal and local and most likely were passed down from mother to daughter. Design elements changed slowly, a characteristic that helps archeologists and modern descendants track the location and composition of early populations.

The Living Past

The first Ancestral Puebloans settled in Mesa Verde about A.D. 550. Formerly a nomadic people, they gradually began to lead a more settled way of life. Farming replaced hunting and gathering as their main source of livelihood. They lived in pithouses clustered into small villages, which they usually built on the mesa tops but occasionally in the cliff recesses. They learned to make pottery and acquired the bow and arrow, a more efficient weapon for hunting than the atlatl, or throwing spear. These were fairly prosperous times and the population increased.

About A.D. 750, they began building houses above ground, with upright walls made of poles and mud. They built the houses one against another in long, curving rows often with a pithouse or two in front. The pithouses were probably the forerunners of the kivas of later times. From then on, these people are known as Puebloans, a Spanish word for village dwellers.

Pithouses

The pithouse represents the beginning of a settled way of life, based on agriculture. They were square dwellings sunk a few feet into the ground with timbers at the corners to support the roof. Inside was a living room, fire pit with an air deflector, an antechamber, which might contain storage bins or pits, and a sipapu. Pithouses evolved into the kivas of later times. In Mesa Verde, the people lived in this type of dwelling from about A.D. 550 to 750.

By A.D. 1000 the people of Mesa Verde had advanced from pole-and-adobe construction to skillful stone masonry. Walls of thick, double-coursed stone often rose two or three stories high and were joined into units of 50 rooms or more. Pottery also changed, as black drawings on a white background replaced crude designs on dull gray. Farming provided a better diet than before, and much mesa-top land was cleared for that purpose.

The years from A.D. 1100 to 1300 are considered Mesa Verde's classic period. The population may have reached several thousand and was concentrated in compact villages of many rooms. Kivas were built within the enclosing walls rather than in the open. Round towers began to appear, and masonry, pottery, weaving, jewelry, and tool-making became more sophisticated. The stone walls of the large pueblos are regarded as the finest ever built in Mesa Verde; they are made of carefully shaped stones laid in straight courses. Baskets show evidence of decline in workmanship, but this may be due to the widespread use of pottery.

About A.D. 1200 there was another major population shift. The people began to move back into the cliff alcoves that had sheltered their ancestors long centuries before. We do not know why they made this move. Perhaps it was for defense; perhaps the alcoves offered better protection from the elements; perhaps there were religious or psychological reasons. Whatever the reason or combination of reasons, it gave rise to the cliff dwellings for which Mesa Verde is famous.

Most of the cliff dwellings were built from the late 1190s to the late 1270s. They range from one-room houses to villages of more than 200 rooms such as the Cliff Palace. There was no standard floor plan. The cliff dwellers built to the available space. Most walls were single courses of stone, perhaps because the alcove roofs limited heights and also protected them from erosion by the weather. The masonry work varied in quality. Rough construction can be found alongside walls with well-shaped stones. Many rooms were plastered on the inside and decorated with painted designs.

The Ancestral Puebloans lived in the cliff dwellings for less than a hundred years. There are several theories about the reasons for their migration. We know that the last quarter of the century was a time of drought and crop failures, but these people had survived earlier droughts. Maybe after hundreds of years of intensive use, the land and its resources were depleted. Perhaps there were social and political problems, and the people looked for new opportunities elsewhere.

When the people of Mesa Verde left, they traveled south into New Mexico and Arizona, settling among their kin who were already there. Some of todays Pueblo people, and perhaps other tribes, are descendants of the cliff dwellers of the Mesa Verde.

The Kiva

Kiva is a Hopi word for ceremonial room. The kivas at Mesa Verde were underground chambers comparable to churches of later times. Based on modern Pueblo practice, Ancestral Puebloans may have gone there to conduct healing rituals or pray for rain, luck in hunting or good crops. Kivas also served as gathering places and sometimes as a place to weave. A roof of beams and mud supported by pilasters, covered each kiva. Access was by ladder through a hole in the center of the roof. A small hole in the floor, called a sipapu, was the symbolic entrance to the underworld.

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Reservation Information

Campsites

There are no reservations accepted for individual campsites. Camping is first-come, first-served, but rarely fills up. Each campsite has a picnic table and fireplace with grill. The campground has modern comfort stations and trailer dump stations. The gas station, camp store, snack bar, laundry and showers are available mid-May through early October. Gathering firewood is not permitted. Charcoal and firewood are available at the store. Camping is limited to 14 days.

Reservations are accepted for group sites and electrical hookup sites only. All other sites are on a first-come, first-served basis. Morefield Campground, located 4 miles inside the park, contains more than 400 sites. Reservations can be made by calling (970) 533-7731.

Fees for camping are $10 per site for tent or RV, and $17.50 for a site with electrical hookup. Group sites are $4 per person with a minimum fee of $40. You may call the campground entrance at (970) 565-2133 for more information.

Far View Lodge

Far View Lodge, located inside the park and operated by ARAMARK, has rooms available from mid-April through mid-October. Further information and/or reservations for the lodge can be made by calling (800) 449-2288 or (970) 529-4421. Lodging is also widely available through the Cortez, Mancos, Dolores, and Durango areas.

Cliff Palace, Balcony House and Long House

There is a nominal tour fee per person to enter Cliff Palace, Balcony House or Long House. Tickets are available at the Far View Visitor Center only, on a first-come, first-served basis and are sold on the day of the tour only. The visitor center is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily during the summer season.

Commercial Tour Operators

Commercial tour operators should contact the chief rangers office at (970) 529-4461 for details on commercial tour fees.

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