Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings
Photo: w_lemay, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)
For about 700 years, Ancestral Puebloan families farmed the top of this tilted green tableland. In the late 1100s and 1200s many of them moved into stone villages tucked into alcoves under the cliff rim, and by about 1300 they had moved south to the Rio Grande and Hopi country, where their descendants live today.
This drive covers 13 stops in about six hours, starting at the Mesa Verde Visitor and Research Center at the park entrance and ending at Sun Temple and the Cliff Palace overlook on Chapin Mesa, about 20 miles in. Every stop on the route is free to visit as an overlook or open site. To step inside Cliff Palace, Balcony House, Long House or Square Tower House you need a ranger-tour ticket from recreation.gov, so book ahead.
The roads are long and winding, the mesa sits at roughly 7,000 to 8,500 feet, and food and fuel are scarce once you leave the entrance area. Bring water, check nps.gov/meve for current road, trail and tour status, and take your time.
13 stops on this tour:
Visitor and Research Center - Plan Your Mesa
Park Point - Top of the Green Table
Far View Sites - Village Life on the Mesa Top
Step House - Two Villages, Six Centuries Apart
Chapin Mesa Museum - Dioramas of Daily Life
Spruce Tree House - Life in an Alcove
Balcony House - The Adventure Tour
Pithouses and Early Pueblos - Before the Cliffs
Square Tower House - The Tallest Walls
Sun Point View - A Canyon Full of Neighbors
Oak Tree House and Fire Temple - Fewkes Canyon
Sun Temple - A Building Without a Roof
Cliff Palace - The Largest Cliff Dwelling
Plan your visit
- Route: 13 stops · about 26 miles of driving · self-drive
- Time: about 6 hours with stops
- Start: Visitor and Research Center (directions)
- Cost: free tour; the site itself charges an entrance fee
Stops on this tour
- Visitor and Research Center - Plan Your Mesa
- Park Point - Top of the Green Table
- Far View Sites - Village Life on the Mesa Top
- Step House - Two Villages, Six Centuries Apart
- Chapin Mesa Museum - Dioramas of Daily Life
- Spruce Tree House - Life in an Alcove
- Balcony House - The Adventure Tour
- Pithouses and Early Pueblos - Before the Cliffs
- Square Tower House - The Tallest Walls
- Sun Point View - A Canyon Full of Neighbors
- Oak Tree House and Fire Temple - Fewkes Canyon
- Sun Temple - A Building Without a Roof
- Cliff Palace - The Largest Cliff Dwelling
More tours nearby
- Garden of the Gods (220 mi)
- Grand Canyon South Rim (223 mi) - Rock layers almost two billion years deep, Mary Colter
- Zion Canyon (252 mi) - Ride the shuttle up Zion Canyon past sandstone giants, hanging gardens and the stories of the Southern Paiute, pioneers and park builders.