One-way Distance: up to 30 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation: 5225 - 6818 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: half day/full day tours
Trailhead: Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park Visitor Center
Fee: varies
Attractions: pueblo, cliff dwellings, rock art
The Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park is located about 20 miles south of Cortez, Colorado on Tribal Land and can only be visited by booking a half or full day guided tour. The Tribal Park is often acclaimed as 'the other Mesa Verde', which holds true as far as the builders and occupiers of both locations being the same ancient people goes, but the Tribal Park itself is hugely less developed and visitors can expect a much more primitive experience. Tours can be booked by calling the number on their website.
The first pause on our tour was at a site near Chimney Rock that our guide liked to call 'The Jailhouse' because of the iron bars on its windows. At one time it was meant to become the Visitor Center for the Tribal Park.
The next stop was at a rubble pile mound where there were the remains of 2 large kivas. At this point the guide went into great detail of the Hopi Four Worlds prophecy. In a nutshell it states:
The ground in this area is literally carpeted with shards of pottery of all styles and sizes. Our guide mentioned that native people believe the shards still posses the spirits of the people to which the pottery once belonged and that some take care not to touch it with their fingers lest the spirit of some unbenevolent ancestor might bring them bad luck.
The next stop was at a site where a person lived that our guide once knew. If I remember correctly it was the same person that encouraged the creation of the Tribal Park. Apparently the tribe had already done a land swap with Mesa Verde National Park. This person thought Mesa Verde was going to ask for even more land so he suggested that they create their own park so that could be avoided.
These images were some of his relatives or household. The lady on the right is carrying a little girl, (yellow is the color for a girl), on a cradleboard.
This might have been a self portrait. Our guide said the way to interpret the painted hands was as if the person was saying: 'I was here. All is well.'
The next stop was at a site that had a Solstice Panel, on the left, and an Emergence Panel, on the right. The guide mentioned that he showed a Hopi elder these panels and he was able to immediately give the interpretation which tied in perfectly with the Hopi Four Worlds prophecy.
On the far left is the image of Spider Grandmother. Her arms are surrounding the spiral with one arm joining the hand of the next image and the other touching its foot. That next image is that of Masauwu (Maasaw, Mausauu), Skeleton Man, was the Spirit of Death, Earth God, door keeper to the Fifth World, and the Keeper of Fire. He was also the Master of the Upper World, or the Fourth World, and was there when the good people escaped the wickedness of the Third World for the promise of the Fourth. Masauwu is described as wearing a hideous mask, but again showing the diversity of myths among the Hopi, Masauwu was alternately described as a handsome, bejewelled man beneath his mask or as a bloody, fearsome creature. He is also assigned certain benevolent attributes. (Wikipedia)
The deep groove on the right represents mans emergence from the sipapu. The concentric crosses represent the 'Blue Star' that man is to follow.
From that site the tour made its way up on top of the mesa above Lion Canyon to visit some cliff dwellings. There were restrooms and a sheltered picnic area where we parked. What might be the crux of this part of the tour for some visitors are 4 ladders that provide a way of getting down from the mesa to the bench above the canyon where the cliff dwellings are located. Three of the ladders had been recently rebuilt with the intention of also rebuilding the 4th ladder.
At the bottom of the last ladder there is a nice trail that leads around the mesa to the Lion House Ruins.
Built up against the back of the alcove parts of this ruin were as much as 3 or 4 stories high.
Other parts of the ruins rest high up on a ledge where they were still mostly intact.
Continuing along the trail beneath the mesa from Lion House the next ruin is Morris #5.
Parts of this ruin are also up on a higher ledge. Our guide said that one of the towers of rooms on the right side of the alcove at one time was 5 stories high and by climbing up through those rooms they could reach the rooms on the higher ledge.
From Morris #5 we turned around and hiked back to the bottom of the ladders. At that point we continued into the back of the side canyon to the Tree House Ruins.
In this block of rooms the one on the left with the 'T' shaped door was used as a living space while the other rooms were for storage.
On the rock below those rooms there are some grinding slicks that bears the inscription of John Wetherill dated 1-14-1890 next to one of A Wetherill dated 1-1-88. The Wetherills apparently made more than one visit to the Tree House Ruins. The Wetherill's discovery of Cliff Palace, in Mesa Verde, was in December of 1888 which would have fallen between the dates of these 2 inscriptions.
Here is the kiva at Tree House.
More rooms in the east end of the alcove.
Here are some near perfect ruins further along the cliff where the rooms on the ledge would have been accessed by climbing up through the rooms on the left.
These are the same ruins as viewed from the edge of the mesa at the top of the ladders. Here you can see a little more of the rooms on the ledge. Eagles Nest House and some other ruins are on around the canyon past this ruin but we didn't take time to visit them.
