Sand Canyon Pueblo Trail

The Sand Canyon Pueblo Trail in Canyon of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado is a short interpretive trail to a large mostly unexcavated Ancestral Pueblo site. It is located at the north trailhead of the 6.5 mile Sand Canyon Trail.

The village is U shaped around a spring at the head of Sand Canyon. The trail has two arms, to each side of the village. The overall site is one of dozens in the area and had about 420 rooms, 100 kivas, and 14 towers. Most of what is visible now though is piles of rubble. Several hundred people are thought to have lived here between 1245 and 1290 AD.

The west arm of the trail circles around the outer wall and then passes through to the interior. The west side is thought to have the most kivas and open spaces and may have had a different role than the east side of the village.

 The terrain along the trail is fairly thick Pinyon Pine and Utah Juniper forest with a lot of sage brush and yucca plants. The forest has grown up through many of the collapsed structures.

There are good interpretive signs along the trail explaining the layout of the village. The signs include drawings that show how the structures are thought to have looked. These are helpful as you can't tell much from what appears now.

There are spots on each side of the canyon with views down the canyon to the south. The east side gives a good view back to the village on the west. Down the canyon there are quite a few small structures tucked up under rock alcoves. These are visible on the Sand Canyon Trail.

There is about a mile worth of hiking on this trail. The time spent here depends on how long you want to linger.

This is a tricky trail head to find. It is on County Road N west of County Road 16. Turn west off of Highway 491 onto County Road P north of Cortez and zig zag west and south.

Yucca House National Monument

Yucca House National Monument, just south of Cortez in southwest Colorado, is an unexcavated Ancestral Pueblo site in the valley between Mesa Verde in the east and Sleeping Ute Mountain in the west.


This must be one of the most obscure National Monuments in the National Park System, despite having been added to the system in December 1919 following the donation of the land by the original owner Henry Van Kleek. There are no signs along the highways to alert visitors and the route into the site is not even a public road. Going there is like visiting a red roofed ranch site that had a large ruin site in the south forty.


Yucca House was first described in 1877 and was the largest ruins site to have been located up to that time. The setting was adjacent to good agricultural land that is today irrigated hay fields. There are seep springs on the site that provided water. The site is also very scenic, with views of Mesa Verde and Sleeping Ute Mountain nearby and the LaPlata and San Miguel ranges visible in the distance.


The only section of wall that is intact is part of what is called the "Lower House". It is one of two conspicuous mounds on the site. We usually see these sites after they have been excavated and fixed up somewhat. This wall was stabilized in 1964. Very little other work has been done on this site. This site is an example of what nature will do to the works of man after we leave.


In an otherwise dry area there are conspicuous green spots showing the location of seep springs that provided water for the site. The vegetation that over runs the site is mostly sagebrush, cactus, and greasewood. This isn't a very comfortable site to hike across. I didn't see any Yucca plants at Yucca House. The name comes from nearby Sleeping Ute Mountain which in the Ute language was called "mountain full of Yucca".

The "Upper House" is the major mound on the site, standing 15 to 20 feet above its foundations. When looking at these filled in rubble piles I wonder how one would even start to unravel the story here.

I wandered about the site for about 1:20, longer than the average that appeared on the sign in log. Yucca House is not so difficult to find if you have the directions. Turn west on County Road B about five miles south of Cortez off of Highway 491. Turn right or north after 0.8 miles on a gravel road and follow this twisty route through the hay fields for 1.4 miles until you are in the yard with two red roofed ranch houses. It seems odd but that's it.