Note: It takes one hour to get from the Mesa Verde National Park entrance to the Cliff Palace parking area.

The only way to experience Cliff Palace up close is through a ranger guided tour.  Purchase a tour ticket at the Visitor Center and select a time that you would like to go.  The tours cost $5 each and I selected the 12:30 pm tour.  The times vary by season so make sure you purchase your tickets in advance (up to two days in advance) and they can only be purchased in person!  The tours fill up fast I went as early as I could to the Visitor Center to purchase my ticket!

I asked the ranger who was selling tour tickets what was the number one thing to see at Mesa Verde and he said I should do the tours for both Cliff Palace and Balcony House – and so I did!  I got back in my car and headed through the park entrance (it’s $25 for passenger vehicles).  It then took me 1 hour to drive to Cliff Palace so make sure you plan accordingly and arrive a little early!

Once I got to the Cliff Palace Overlook, I found a nice parking spot in the shade and then went to the covered gazebo to wait or the tour to begin.  There were about 50 people on the 12:30 pm tour with lots of kids and older folks alike.  Just before our tour time began a park ranger came over and introduced himself.  He then explained how the tour would work, some of the things we would be seeing, and then took our tickets.

A few reminders: no food is allowed on the tour including gum.  Water is the only liquid allowed on the tour.  You are not allowed to touch, lean on, and sit on any of the structures. While on tour, the ranger made sure to publicly point out anyone who did touch the structures, and he did!

The first part of the tour is explained as to who these cliff dwellers were and why they chose to build and live here.  These ancient peoples, the Ancestral Pueblo, migrated here more than 800 years ago and began to build along the cliffs.  Others have lived here before that time but Mesa Verde seemed to get packed with people around 800 years ago.  It is hypothesized that these cliffs were places of safety and defense and that is why they built such large communities. But also, because of agriculture opportunities (corn, squash, and beans), the Pueblo Indians could stay here and no longer had to migrate to where the food/water sources was located.  They could then spend more time building bigger cities.

We made our way to the overlook of Cliff Palace and went down our first long stretch of stairs.  The were made by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) in the 1930s so they aren’t OSHA approved, but the stairs aren’t that bad and we eventually all got down the first part (about 100 ft descent) to where we now were at about eye level with Cliff Palace.  We stopped here so we could view the entire community and imagine it busy with life.

At the highest reaches of the dwellings there are storage areas and granaries to house food.  The lower areas were for living, daily life, and religious activities.  The ranger said that Cliff Palace was the largest community in Mesa Verde with about 150-200 people living here.  He then said that the entire Mesa Verde had at its peak 4,500 to 5,000 people!  Someone in the group asked where the rest of the people lived.  The ranger said that there are so many cliff dwellings and other structures that everyone was just spread out all over the mesa!  This must have been an incredibly busy place to see back in the day!

Cliff Palace has about 150 rooms and 21 kivas!

You may be wondering where all the water is?  Water was (and still is of course) a very precious resource in Mesa Verde.  The Ancestral Pueblo would build dams on top of the mesa to catch as much water as they could.  There are few springs and seeps along the canyon walls too.  Incredible amounts of water were used to create a plaster type material for the building construction.  Think of how much water was used on just one of these structures!

As we moved along our guide had the whole group circle around one of the kivas.  He told us about how the kivas were not only used in religious activities but also in daily life.

Our last stop was looking up one of the towers. You can see that the people painted on the outside and inside of the structures.  The most visible of these paintings, or pictographs, was on the inside of one of the towers.  Bright red paint in different patterns is visible and it made me think what this place would have looked like before the paint faded.

The tour ended and we came up a different entrance that the Ancestral Pueblo people used.  You can see their old hand and foot holds that they carved into the rock walls.  Nowadays, there are plenty more steps and ladders to guide visitors back to the top.