Mesa Verde National Park Self-Guided Driving Audio Tour

Coming up in a moment is Mancos Valley Overlook, boasting an amazing vista of the valley far below us and the mountains beyond. From here, you can see some of the distinct ecosystems in these mountains. There’s the shrub-steppe community at lower elevations dominated by plants like sagebrush and rabbitbrush. A little higher up is the pinyon-juniper woodland, also known as the “pygmy forest.” Here, pinyon and juniper trees are king. It’s called a pygmy forest because these trees don’t typically grow more than 30 feet tall.

Welcome to the sacred land of Mesa Verde! This tour begins at the Mesa Verde National Park Entrance Sign. If you’re already here, pause and snap an iconic photo with the sign before beginning. If you’d like to learn a bit more about the tour’s features, click on Learn More. Otherwise, let’s get started!

Note: The tour is over 30 miles long, with more than 52 audio stories, and takes about 2-3 hours to complete.

Buy once, use for one year! Ideal for extended visits and return trips over the next 12 months.

We’re approaching a detour opportunity for one of Mesa Verde’s most popular hiking trails: Point Lookout Trail. It’s only two miles long, but climbs 500 feet in elevation. Most of it is switchbacks to get to the top of the butte and then a bit of flatness up to the edge. I’d consider it a moderate hike that can take up to two hours.

Around 1200 C.E., up to 35,000 Ancestral Puebloans called Montezuma Valley their home. That’s more than the number of people living there today! From this overlook, we can also see the distinctive Knife Edge rock formation. It’ll be that jagged, triangular spit of rock jutting across the landscape.

Coming up in just a minute, we’ll have the chance to visit the highest point in Mesa Verde: Park Point. Sitting at 8,572 feet above sea level, there’s not much you can’t see from up here. It’s also known to be a bit cooler and breezy at the peak, so this might be particularly nice if you’re visiting on a hot day.

Coming up soon is Geologic Overlook, offering great views of Mesa Verda’s fascinating geologic past. From here, we’ll be able to see the four distinct layers of stone that accumulated to make up much of the park today.

We’re approaching the most famous cliff dwellings in this region, but we also have the option to take a detour to another couple structures that are off the beaten path. The detour leads to Long House and Step House, and you can actually walk through these ancient historic sites. The detour does add about an hour of driving in total, but it’s worth it if you want to add something extra to your visit!

We’re approaching the most famous cliff dwellings in this region, but we also have the option to take a detour to another couple structures that are off the beaten path. The detour leads to Long House and Step House, and you can actually walk through these ancient historic sites. The detour does add about an hour of driving in total, but it’s worth it if you want to add something extra to your visit!

We’re approaching the Far View House, the first ancient structure on our tour. It’s not a cliff dwelling, but it was once one of the most densely populated parts of Mesa Verde. And it owes its success to the Far View Reservoir

This impressive structure up here is the Far View House, a precursor to the more advanced cliff dwellings. It was built around the year 1000 and became the center of one of the most densely-populated centers of Puebloan life.

Welcome to Coyote Village! Like Far View House, this ancient dwelling place once housed numerous Puebloan families. And like Far View House, the structure centers around those circular kivas.

This is a great example of a totally different type of living situation that was common in this area during the Puebloan times. Just one extended family lived here, with multiple generations sharing the same house. It shows us that not all of Puebloan society revolved around dense, multi-family structures like Far View House! Plenty of others lived in separate homes, though these were almost always located very near to the larger structures.

While it might not look much like a tower anymore, this once served as an important watchtower for this community. Here, watchers could keep an eye out for approaching enemies, herds of game, and bad weather on the horizon. The natural elevation of this site made a tower like this one super effective!

Coming up in a moment will be another unique type of building from the Ancestral Puebloans: Cedar Tree Tower. This was one of many towers that once dotted the top of this mesa. While the tower doesn’t stand at its previous height, the base has been remarkably well preserved. Like most of the towers found in Mesa Verde, this one is situated quite close to a kiva. This proximity has led some to speculate that these towers were used not only for observation, but also for ceremonial purposes. They were also useful for communicating from one settlement to another, which explains why there are so many of them!

Coming up after the bend ahead is Petroglyph Point Trail. This moderately difficult 2.5-mile hike takes about two hours, and leads you on a scenic loop through Spruce Canyon. This trail actually gets its path from an ancient Puebloan foot trail, so you’ll be walking the same route that those who lived here a thousand years ago would have taken to connect with other communities!

Park in this lot. Here, we can access the Petroglyph Point Trail and get a great look at our first proper cliff dwelling. Once you’ve parked, head to the building we just passed on our right. That’s the Chapin Mesa Archaeological Museum. Behind it, we’ll find overlooks with views of a cliff dwelling called the Spruce Tree House!

Just up ahead we’ll be able to witness one of the most stunning pieces of ancient architecture in Mesa Verde: The Cliff Palace! As its name of grandeur suggests, Cliff Palace is significantly larger than most other cliff dwellings that have been found at Mesa Verde. It’s actually the largest of all the cliff dwellings in the region.

Up next is an overlook offering views of the House of Many Windows cliff dwelling. Looking from this gorgeous vista, we’ll be able to see a low dwelling tucked into Cliff Canyon. Once the home to a large Puebloan family, the House of Many Windows has 15 rooms that have been remarkably well preserved by its sheltered position in the cliffs. Most of the “windows” aren’t actually windows at all. They’re doors!

In a moment we’ll come to an overlook with a view of the Hemenway House, one of Mesa Verde’s more precarious cliff dwellings. This house gets its name from New Yorker Mary Hemenway, who helped to fund some of the early archaeological efforts in Mesa Verde.

It gets its name from the balcony ‘railing’ that separates the steep cliff face from the rest of the alcove. Probably a good idea given the dizzying heights! About 30 people lived here and used these 38 rooms and two kivas. One interesting thing about this balcony is it actually faces northeast, which is unusual for cliff dwellings. This means the people who lived here didn’t get much sun or warmth during the winter months. So why did they build it this way?

On our right, we’re coming up on the trail that leads to the Soda Canyon Overlook. This easy 1-mile trail takes about a half hour. It winds through the juniper and pinyon trees that dot the cliff sides on the way to the magnificent views of Soda Canyon. Along the way, you’ll also come to a few different overlooks offering breathtaking views of the canyon. And at the end, you’ll get an even better view of Balcony House than the one we just left!

Coming up soon is the Pithouse, offering a glimpse at a different time period from the cliff dwellings. Here, we’ll be able to see one of the earliest permanent structures built within Mesa Verde. The pithouse structure was the dominant structure Ancestral Puebloans built and lived in around the year 600 CE.

Just ahead on our right will be Navajo Canyon View, offering spectacular views of the landscape. I highly recommend stopping there for photos!

Just beyond that viewpoint, we’ll also get to the tallest structure standing in Mesa Verde at Square Tower House. This tower stands over the rest of the buildings in this area at four stories, or 27 feet tall! Rectangular cutouts up and down the structure seem to be windows, but archaeologists can’t say for certain whether they served another purpose.

The collection of dwellings we’re passing now belong to the Mesa Top Sites. Each offers another glimpse into Ancestral Puebloan life. Coming up soon on our left will be one of the largest, the Sun Point Pueblo.

Just ahead is Sun Point View, offering a vista which features a cliff that’s absolutely filled with cliff dwellings! From this spot alone we’ll be able to see over 30 separate dwellings!
Park in the turnout coming up on our right to check out the view.

Oak Tree House is one of the best examples in the park of how Ancestral Puebloans were able to adapt these alcoves to their needs. The alcove itself has two separate layers, each of which has every inch of space utilized! Up in the outer alcove where it would’ve been rather cramped to live, the Ancestral Puebloans constructed storage spaces! The inner alcove contains all sorts of structures and dwellings for habitation. While many of the dwellings are rather small with fewer than 10 rooms, some rose very tall all the way to the ceiling of the inner alcove.

The Sun Temple is a ceremonial site that may just be one of the best examples to show off the Ancestral Puebloans’ architectural prowess! Sun Temple would have been an immense labor effort to construct, and research done on the site in 2017 revealed some fascinating details about its construction. Sun Temple shows evidence the Ancestral Puebloans had knowledge of sophisticated geometric concepts, such as the pythagorean theorem. They used them to construct the Sun Temple. To keep things uniform, they even had their own standardized system of measurement! One “unit” equaled about 30 centimeters.