Finding Fall In Southwest Colorado
Visiting Mesa Verde National Park, located in the southwest corner of Colorado, was a last-minute idea. I’d been researching our 2023 route, which may include a late spring visit to Colorado, and realized the ranger-led tours of the cliff dwellings would not yet be open for the season.
We found a great boondocking spot on Forest Rd 316 in the San Juan National Forest, halfway between Mesa Verde NP and Durango. It was the first week of October and the little oak trees around us were turning colors and we could see snowy peaks out in the distance. Unfortunately, it rained almost the entire week, which kept us stuck inside our camper and grumpy.
Some relief came on Friday when we decided to drive to Silverton and then on to Ouray, two small mountain towns north of Durango. As we headed up into the mountains, the aspens were popping yellow! We didn’t initially come for leaf peeping, but now think it might be one of the best times to visit Colorado.
The touristy town of Silverton is at 9300ft, and the colors were past peak there. We walked around a bit but should have saved our time for Ouray, which we like more.
The 25-mile stretch of Highway 550 that connects Silverton and Ouray is known as the Million Dollar Highway. It’s one of the most beautiful drives in the country and doing it in the Fall was spectacular.
The road’s highest point is Red Mountain Pass at 11,000ft and has sweeping mountain views.
Looking north towards the town of Ouray (7700 ft), the colors were again at their peak.
Then, the road travels through the Uncompahgre Gorge, with steep canyon walls and no guardrails.
We stopped at the Bear Creek Falls Overlook.
And, the Ouray overlook.
This was actually our second time visiting these two towns. In 2015, we stayed in Ouray when we took a Colorado road trip with our friends. We rented jeeps to drive the dirt pass over to Silverton and back. One day, we’ll stay at Ridgeway State Park not far from Ouray for a longer visit since we really like this area of Colorado.
On Saturday, we had tickets for 2 ranger-led tours at Mesa Verde. Even though our boondocking spot was 6 miles from the entrance to the park, it took an additional hour to get to the actual cliff dwellings.
Mesa Verde was home to the Ancestral Pueblo people from AD550 until the late 1200s. It is believed they built the cliff dwellings to live closer to the seep springs which were the only year-round water source on the mesa. They only inhabited the cliff dwellings for the last ~100 years before moving further south into the Rio Grande Valley. Today, there are 26 tribes in CO/NM/AZ that have a heritage to the people of Mesa Verde.
Our first tour was of Cliff Palace which is the largest in the park with 150 rooms. The tour only lasted half an hour and consisted of walking along the front sidewalk and seeing a kiva up close. Kivas are round subterranean rooms used for ceremonial purposes.
In between our tours, we hiked the short Soda Canyon overlook trail to see a view of the Balcony House, which was our 2nd tour.
The Balcony House is much smaller with only 38 rooms. But this tour lasted an hour and had a more in-depth discussion about what is known of the people that lived here. It consisted of climbing multiple ladders and crawling through a tunnel and getting to be inside a couple of the rooms.
Next up is a longer than planned visit to Santa Fe!
