Mesa Verde National Park

Mesa Verde is a very different type of park than the other parks on our trip. Located in southwestern Colorado on the Ute Mountain Reservation, Mesa Verde is like a giant museum containing archeological ruins of the homes and cliff dwellings of tribes who used to live in the area. The archeological area spans 10,000 square miles of the Colorado Plateau

While this area has been inhabited by indigenous peoples for ~10,000 years, the archeological remains show us now the Pueblo people lived, high in the steep slopes of these rocky hills, for more than 700 years. They were hunters, foragers, and farmers. In fact, there are actually 26 different Native American tribes associated with the Mesa Verde area.

Inside the park there is a museum which houses artifacts from many of these people groups and tells the stories of their lives, accomplishments, and inventions. I highly recommend it - while the cliff dwellings are incredible, the museum shows you more of the details of what life was like for the people who once lived here.

There are several ranger-guided tours you can take to see the cliff-dwellings up close - most of them can only be visited this way. Unfortunately, we were there in late October, so the tours were over for the year. However, there are plenty of overlooks to view the dwellings from afar, and you can visit Step House on your own - there's a ranger posted there to answer questions!d

There are also many sites throughout the park where you can view different types of homes which have been preserved, such as this one:

We did a few hikes, including Canyon Overlook, Petroglyph Point, and Soda Canyon Overlook. Even though we weren't able to do a guided tour, we still got to see so many cool archeological sites. This was a fun park and it was nice to switch it up a bit on our long road trip.