Ladders & Ledges

Ute Mountain Tribal Park is about 20 miles south of Cortez at the south end of Mesa Verde National Park and is only accessible on a guided tour.

We decided on the full day tour and as it’s an 80 mile round trip on gravel/dirt roads we decided to travel with the guide, we were glad we did.

Our guide for the day was Scotty, and among our first stops were some Ancestral Puebloan petroglyph sites along the Mancos river.

On a boulder at one of the sites there were the remains of lots of different styles of pottery, the thicker the pottery the older it is.

Leaving the river valley we headed up to the top of the mesa and turned off the gravel road onto a red dirt road. We took a short walk across the slick rock before climbing down a ladder

to visit our first cliff dwelling.

Only minimal restoration is ever carried out on any of the dwellings. We were allowed to walk around and look into the rooms, but not to enter them. We were also allowed to pick up, and put down, anything we thought was interesting.

We carried on along a maze of red dirt roads to our lunch spot and then we came to the highlight of our tour.

This time we climbed down 3 ladders, the first two and the top of the third ladder.

the bottom of the third ladder and the ledge our trail was on, part way down Lion Canyon and yes, it was a long way to the bottom!

We then had a 1½ mile walk along the ledge above the canyon, in and out of 4 cliff dwellings.

One of the cliff dwellings we visited.

Looking back along the trail.

I had to pass on Eagles Nest as the 35ft ladder was just that bit too high for me. I could probably have climbed up, but I wasn’t at all sure that I’d be able to make it down and much as I enjoy exploring these places, I’ve no desire to spend the rest of my life living in one!!!! Mike had no problems with the height so he climbed up and had a look around.

Scotty our guide was concerned about a storm coming in, so as soon as Mike came back down the ladder, we set off back along the trail to the get a head start on the others as I’m not a very fast walker.

As we headed back, I took the photograph below you can see the storm coming our way we really wouldn’t want to be caught on the trail in that.

We were in the van and on our way back when the rain started, but further up the road it had obviously been raining for quite a while. Driving on wet red dirt roads is like driving on ice we were slipping and sliding all over the place.

Scotty did a great job with the van and thankfully we were soon off the red dirt and back on the gravel and not long after that we drove out of the storm and were back in the sunshine.

Have fun, we are!