Lost and Found!

Sand Canyon Pueblo is part of the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. The directions in my book, Ancient Ruins of the Southwest were quite specific, we followed them carefully and found, absolutely nothing. We turned around and drove back slowly, tried a couple of side roads still nothing. Sand Canyon Pueblo had vanished!

After talking to the very knowledgeable Pat in the Colorado Welcome Center in Cortez we found out why. We should have been on Road N not Road P as stated in the book no wonder we couldn’t find it!

Armed with the new directions we drove straight to it. The parking area is at the head of the Sand Canyon Trail and from there it’s about 200 yards down a separate trail to the pueblo.

Luckily I put my boots on, because as we walked along I strode straight over the top of a snake! Thank goodness it wasn’t a rattler! We were told it might be a gopher snake, but whatever it was it was about 5ft long and had black squares on its back. After that I looked at every shady spot under a bush, twice!

Sand Canyon Pueblo is situated at the head of a canyon near a spring it has been partially excavated and then backfilled for preservation, so while there is not a lot to see it is an interesting place.

The whole village had an outside wall running around the edge of it, the trail crosses the wall in several places and there are interpretive boards along the way.

Have fun, we are!