The southwest of the United States may seem like a desert today, hosting only small dispersed cities and towns without much going on. This hasn’t always been the truth. This area was home to a diverse and booming population of people for over 10,000 years. No place showcases this better than Canyon of the Ancients National Monument.
While many national parks and monuments can be defined by a singular access point, Canyon of the Ancients doesn’t follow this paradigm. This 174,000-acre preserve in the Four Corners area has many access points. It is one of the densest collections of archeological sites in the United States. Some reports show over 100 sites per square mile! Many of these sites are untouched or only accessible by long hikes.
Canyon of the Ancients Visitor Center
The visitor center at Canyon of the Ancients should be your first stop. Not only will you get access to maps of the whole monument, but they also have a great museum. It hosts a mockup of an ancestral puebloan pit house, as well as many displays talking about not only the history of the modern people exploring the region, but the stories of the people who called the area home. If you have kids, you should definitely get the Junior Ranger pamphlet. It encourages your kids to dive into the information and find answers instead of just nodding and smiling at the displays.
Outside of the visitor center, and within an easy sub-mile walk, are the remains of a village with great interpretive signs. If you only have one day to explore the monument this is the best “bang for your buck.” It’s also a great warmup to visiting Mesa Verde National Park.
While exploring the area, we stayed at a dispersed campsite outside of Mancos, CO. Actually, we saw a sign for Canyon of the Ancients on the drive and decided we had to check it out!