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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – When it comes to summer vacations, families often seek out historical sites. From museums to battlefields to colonial homes, reenacting history combines fun, relaxation and a healthy dose of learning what it was like “in the old days.”
In the United States, most of those trips look back 200 or 300 years. But there is one spot in the country where it’s possible to get a look at what life was like in the really old days – 1,000 years ago – with a health, active, off-the-beaten path adventure.
At Ute Mountain Tribal Park, deep in the southwest corner of Colorado, visitors will find rock art on canyon walls that date back 1,000 years, and they’ll come across thousands of pottery shards, flinted stones, and beads that still cover the ground. In fact, it’s hard to simply “visit” the area; once there, people participate and become part of the adventure.
Ute Mountain Tribal Park is an area set aside by the Ute Mountain Utes – one of the seven original Ute bands that inhabited Colorado – to preserve Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) architecture. Located along the 114-mile Trail of the Ancients National Scenic Byway, the park was selected by National Geographic Traveler as one of the 80 world destinations for Travel Adventure in the 21st Century.
Pictographs and petroglyphs
At the park, visitors must be accompanied by a Ute guide on tours; no self-guided tours are allowed on the tribal land. In half- and full-day trips, Ute guides interpret Ancestral Puebloan dwellings and rock art, as well as Ute Indian history and geologic land formations. Visitors will find myriad pictographs, petroglyphs and artifacts.
Many sites are within a short walking distance of a gravel road, but the full-day trip includes a three-mile hike and climbs on five ladders to visit four well-preserved canyon cliff dwellings in Lion Canyon. Upon request, guides also will put together special tours to remote sections of the park. These tours involve up to 6 miles of hiking and climbing on original Ancestral Pueblo trails.
The area is remote by most Americans’ standards, but adjacent to a town (Cortez, Colo.) with amenities ranging from hotels and bed and breakfast inns to wineries, breweries and shopping. Water and food are not available in the Tribal Park, but water and soft drinks are available for purchase at the Tribal Park Visitor Center/Museum.
In this arid desert region – an area unlike some more familiar high-alpine Colorado destinations – visitors need to bring plenty of drinking water, lunch, insect repellant, sunscreen (even in the winter), a hat and sturdy hiking shoes. They’ll also need a full tank of gasoline before venturing out with a guide (guides can provide transportation into the park for an extra charge).
Trail of the Ancients
The ancient history doesn’t stop at Ute Mountain Tribal Park. The Trail of the Ancients National Scenic Byway also travels to Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument, the Anasazi Heritage Center, the Four Corners Monument and Mesa Verde National Park.
Touring through the archaeological heartland of America, the Ttrail traces the intriguing occupation of the area by Native Americans. Some regions of the Colorado Plateau, over which the Trail winds, remain today much as they were in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument features the highest density of archaeological sites (more than 100 per square mile) anywhere in the United States, with sites dating back to the eighth century. Only a few areas are open for visitation; in one, visitors will find a particularly interesting adventure on the Sand Canyon Trail, traversing 6.5 miles through woodland forest and red rock canyon.
The Anasazi Heritage Center houses the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument’s visitor center, a research center and hands-on exhibits for visitors.
Hovenweep National Monument, along the Utah-Colorado border, protects six prehistoric, Ancestral Puebloan villages spread over a 20-mile expanse of mesa tops and canyons. The area is noted for its solitude and undeveloped, natural character.
Standing on the corner…
It’s not quite to Winslow, but kids and adults alike enjoy being in four states at one time. The Four Corners Monument marks the point where the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet – the only point in the United States where the boundaries of four states intersect. The monument also marks the boundary between two semi-autonomous Native American governments: the Navajo Nation and the Ute Mountain Reservation.
The other major attraction along the Trail of the Ancients Byway is Mesa Verde National Park, where visitors can delve into the mystery of the Ancestral Puebloans, who inhabited the mesa tops and cliff dwellings that populate the park as well as the other areas along the Trail. The story of these early dwellers’ civilization remains full of unanswered questions.
Visitors can explore the park’s spectacular multi-story cliff dwellings, perched precariously in the alcoves of rock walls (some requiring guidance by a park ranger). That exploration can include a 100-foot canyon descent, climbing down ladders and stairs, and crawling through tunnels.
One of the less-crowded parks (500,000 annual visitors vs. 3 million in Yellowstone), Mesa Verde is the county’s largest archaeological preserve and the sole park dedicated to the work of humankind. National Geographic Traveler selected the park as one of “50 Places to Visit in a Lifetime.”
If you go
Half- and full-day tours of Ute Mountain Tribal Park begin at the park’s visitor center, located 20 miles south of Cortez, Colo. Sites in the park are located 42 miles off the main road on dirt and gravel roads. Tour reservations are required (www.utemountainute.com).
Nearby Cortez offers a variety of accommodations, from chain and local motels to bed-and-breakfast inns. Camping is permitted at Ute Mountain Tribal Park’s primitive campground; cabins also are available.
For details on sites and towns along the Trail of the Ancients, check www.mesaverdecountry.com or www.byways.org.
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