hovenweep national monument

This vast archeological site is over 700 years old and was once a thriving community. Today, you can choose to walk the easy path, a paved sidewalk to an overlook or if you want to see the entire canyon and all the buildings, you can take the two mile round trip hike, which is easy as well. The two mile hike does entail a little scrambling, but shouldn't be a problem if time is taken. This place is very cool and one can almost see the ghosts of Pueblo people inhabiting the area and living off the land. Hovenweep is not on a main highway and so, is harder to get to than other more well known like areas, but it is well worth the trip to find and get there. Highly recommended!

It takes a little effort to get here, but it's worth it. We were here in Feb ( a 60 degree day) and were the only ones here. It was easy to get into the feel of what this place must have been like in the 12th century. The buildings are similar to Mesa Verde, but not as many. You are able to get very close. ( without being too close- very fragile) It's a lovely short walk to go around the small canyon that these were built on. Note that these are on the top of the canyon vs inside. Check it out.

HOVENWEEP NATIONAL MONUMENT (UTAH’S HIDDEN BYWAYS XVIII) HOVENWEEP, a word whispered on the wind. It is a word that speaks of a lost ancient people in an ancient land, long covered by the mists of time. HOVENWEEP, where the old ones lived, thrived, and disappeared. It is a place of mystery, history, and ancient Native American cultures, steeped in the tradition of memory. Hovenweep, a place to visit and reflect, a place which has slipped out of focus in the lenses of civilized history. If there were a National Monument that many people drive past without knowing of its existence, it would be HOVENWEEP NATIONAL MONUMENT, located on the Utah/Colorado border. This small, but highly photogenic area, is a condensed version of Mesa Verde farther south on the Colorado border. Its lack of traffic lies in the fact that there is only one small sign marking the turn-off from SR163, with traffic flying by at speed exceeding 60 mph. The HOVENWEEP NATIONAL MONUMENT unit is an extraordinary area of Cedar Mesa Sandstone, eroded by wind, ice, and water over geologic times. In this matrix, and canyons, the Native Americans of about 1200AD built their stone structures and lived their lives in and around this canyon. The colors and shadows emanating from these eroding Puebloan structures and monoliths produce visual images that make this area highly photogenic, as well as historic. The driving instructions from Blanding, Utah, are given below: PLEASE NOTE: YOU WILL BE TRAVELING ON NATIVE AMERICAN LAND. PLEASE RESPECT THEIR RULES AND CUSTOMS. THIS IS THEIR HOME.1. Go South of Blanding on US191S for 14.8 miles.2. Turn LEFT onto UT 262E/Hovenweep Road for 8.4 miles.3. Turn LEFT onto Hovenweep Road/Indian Route 5099 and continue to follow the Hovenweep Road for 6.7 miles.4. Turn RIGHT onto Reservation Road for 9.4 miles.5. Turn LEFT to stay on Reservation Road for 5.0 miles.6. Make a slight RIGHT onto CR-212/Hovenweep Road for 0.9 miles.7. Turn RIGHT onto CR268A for 0.4 miles to the Monument.This 45.6 mile trip should take about an hour from Blanding, Utah. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS TRIP IF IT HAS RAINED WITHIN THE LAST 24 HOURS. THESE ROADS CAN GET VERY MUDDY AND QUITE SLICK. IN ADDITION, USING A VEHICLE WITH SOME HIGH CLEARANCE, SUCH AS AN SUV OR FOUR WHEEL DRIVE JEEP TYPE, IS PREFERABLE, BUT NOT MANDETORY. I AM NOT KIDDING!!! FURTHERMORE, BRING WATER, FOOD, AND EMERGENCY EQUIPMENT FOR YOUR VEHICLE AND YOUESELF. A GOOD AREA MAP IS ESSENTIAL BEFORE ATTEMPTING THIS MINOR EXPEDITION. You have now reached the Hovenweep National Monument Visitors Center/Ranger Station. Put on a good pair of walking shoes (no flip-flops) and bring water with you before leaving you vehicle. This is a fee area, payable in the Visitors Center. Spend some time at the visitors Center, exploring the relics of that ancient puebloan group that built the ruins that you are about to visit. Get a map of the canyon and discuss the trail conditions with the ranger staff. In addition, take advantage of the rest rooms. You will have to return here if nature calls. Upon exiting the Visitors center, you are confronted with little Ruin Canyon, which is the site of many ancient Native American ruin constructs. Your choice is to go left or right as you circle the canyon. I always go to the RIGHT (i.e. Counterclockwise) in order to gain access to the ruins. The trail has many rock slab sections on it, so be cautious and have proper footgear. The counterclockwise trail is also the choice for the easier wakk. You will first pass Stronghold House. Stop and admire the construction of the walls, remembering that they were built with primitive tools. A bit further on, you will pass what is called a Unit Type House, small but functional. You will now continue over some rock slabs and a fissure in the canyon to cutoff for Tower Point ruin. Take it and examine the Tower and surroundings. Take many photos, but no samples from these hallowed ruins. Continue to Square Tower, one of the multi-roomed constructs in the complex, and admire the detailed construction. Remember that these stones were carried here one at a time by hand, and shaped by hand with primitive tools. Your next stop on your walking tour will be Hovenweep House, which has both rounded and straight walls. The ancient masons used great care in site selection, anchoring this ruin on a base of solid sandstone. The trail continues in a counterclockwise fashion, passing additional ruins, Round Tower, Rim Rock House, and culmination in the grand Twin Towers. Do not look for Gandalf the wizard here, for this is not the Two Towers of “Middle Earth”. In my opinion, the is the most impressive construct in the entire Little Ruin Canyon complex. It is visible from many points during your journey, and worth the effort. The Twin Towers has sixteen rooms, which is an amazing feat of primitive engineering. Spend some time here and admire what has come before, and still is, a gift of the ancient ones. You now have a choice of continuing in the CCW direction, which will become steep, rocky, and descend into the canyon for a short period. My choice is to turn around and return the way I came in (CW). You know the trail and can re-visit those ruins that you want to see for a second time. Your end point will be the Visitors center, where you can discuss your hike with the staff and learn more about the canyon complex. DO NOT DEFACE THE ROCKS OR ITS SURROUNDINGS. YOU ARE ON NATIVE AMERICAN/FEDERAL PROPERTY, AND IT IS AGAINST THE LAW. LEAVE IT THE WAY NATURE INTENDED IT TO BE LEFT! If you exit the Native American lands and make a right onto Utah SR191N, you will return to Blanding, Utah. A left will take you to SR191S and traverse onto SR163S south of Bluff, Utah. You will soon encounter the junction to SR261 on your right. If you continue on SR261, you will soon encounter the perilous track known as the Moki Dugway and Muley Point. Muley Point has some excellent views down the mesa into Monument Valley. The Moki Dugway is difficult to drive, even with 4-wheel drive, and is not recommended for the faint of heart. Starting again at the junction of SR163S and SR261 and making a right onto SR261, you can proceed for a few miles until you reach the junction with Utah SR316. If you take a left onto SR316 and proceed for a couple of miles, you will reach GOOSENECKS STATE PARK. Take a few minutes, go to the overlooks, and explore the entrenched San Juan River, These are really entrenched ox-bows. The San Juan River has cut through the softer rock layers over geologic time to form these meandering trenches. Note the layer cake appearance of the rocks, which were formed by cyclic deposits of sand and rock in a once shallow sea. You can backtrack on SR316, make a right onto SR261, and rejoin Utah SR163 (main road) for your trip home. Enjoy the trip and be safe. ALASKASEEKER (B.I.N.)

If you are interested in the early natives lives in the Four CornersArea I suggest you give Hovenweep National Monument a visit, Not a Mesa Verde but I got more of a feel for the natives and what it took for them to survive at Hovenweep. The monument is a worthwhile place to visit for the first time but it is also a place to go back to over and over to just sit and wonder how they built the towers and why they were abandoned around 500 years ago..

If you have any interest at all in Anasazi Ruins then you must eventually see this place. Castles and round towers perched on the lip of a canyon. You can feel the energy of the place. I highly recommend the 2 mile walk around the well marked trail; just be prepared for a bit of climb as the trail takes you down and back up the canyon walls. But the trail is excellent with clear steps to ease you up. As a minimum, take the 1/4 mile walk to Hovensweep Castle and the slightly twisted tower in the bottom of the canyon. Notice the T-shaped doors on the castle which tie these ruins to Anasazi builders from Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon. One last note, the Hovensweep Monument covers a fairly large area with multiple "groups" of ruins. The main site is at Hovensweep canyon but there are several more very intersting sets (Holly, Horseshoe and hackberry) accessible via a dirt road off the main road about 30 min drive or so away and the Cutthroat castle group another 15-20 minutes away. These are dirt roads and we made it in Prius but would have been in trouble if we hit mud or snow. And these sites are very remote so bring extra water in case of a breakdown. If you're up for all the main sites then I recommend staying in Cortez and driving out to the main Hovensweep site early in the morning then catch the other groups and Canyon of the Ancient sites (such as Lowry Pueblo) on your way back to Cortez. Then catch the other Canyon of the Ancient sites and Mesa Verde on different days. Don't miss the Anasazi Heritage Museum in Delores just North of Cortez; it has the best displays on the Anasazi I have ever seen.

Beautiful, quiet, haunting. I loved Hovenweep so much I used it in my book. Definitely worth the trip from Bluff where we stayed for two nights. Take the walk around the entire site to appreciate all of the amazing landscape.

OK, this is 20-40 miles off the usual main routes, which in Western terms isn't that big a deal, but seesm daunting to some. I drove in from Bluff and left via County Road G. The Utah route was well marked in terms of signs for the monument, but the route numbers didn't correspond to directions on the Monument website--the route numbers change all the time, which seems to be one of the many problems with how Utah marks its roads (another is that a curve or S-curve usually has the added bonus of a steep ascent/descent, while marked grade changes often prove relatively long and gentle). The Colorado side has more varied scenery (the Utah route was desolate); the road is more narrow in Colorado and tends to wind, but has fewer surprises. There is more water on the Colorado side and there is a mix of vineyards, ranches, and rocky scenery, along with patches of aspen.Is it worth the extra miles? If you want a quiet place to camp overnight or a quiet small canyon with antiquities to explore, then definitely yes. The main trail is about 2 miles and covers the perimeter of a small canyon with a hike into/out of the canyon as well. This trail is very well laid out and easy to follow, although some may find the up/down a little steep. It's a nice walk even if the antiquities aren't a big draw--varied bird life, cottontails and coyotes. They also have the occasional rattlesnake, although I didn't see any. High clearance vehicles (10 or 11 inches or more) can explore other sites and there is an 8 mile round trip trail to the Holly ruins. There is a restroom and available drinking water and a small visitor's center.The ruin are roped off and out of respect should not be explored. Unlike the big parks, Hovenweep does not get a lot of visitors or have the same degree of infrastructure. If you want an opportunity to see how people made a life in this desolate canyon and want a change from heavily visited parks, this will appeal. If you truly need a lot of infrastructure or are more of a tourist than a traveler, you'll probably have the same reaction as the more negative reviews. For me, this rounded out a trip that was otherwise heavy on well visited places with sometimes noisy campgrounds.

This is an incredible place where the Pueblo Indians built towers and other structures in a small canyon. It is unbelievable how tall and big some of these structures are and that they are still mostly intact after so many hundreds of years! A must see!

Knowing Hovenweep was near our route of travel we decided to stop in and see what was there. The trail is easy and the walk was nice although I think in the summer it could be somewhat oppressive. I did like seeing the 'village', how the people may have thought about the siting of the dwellings and seeing the sophisticated construction that they used to build the structures. The ranger told us the pass was good for 4 days but unless you were camping there I have no idea what would keep you occupied for more than a couple of hours. I wouldn't make the site a destination but if you can see a way to stop by go.

We did this the same day as the natural bridges. I would not travel way out of the way for this, but since we were near, it was a good stop. It was roughly a 2 mile loop hike Ina and out of a canyon. Not hard, but not flat paved either. Structures were cool, but Mesa verde better

We loved the quantity and quality of the ruins in the park. The loop trail from the visitor center is well maintains and offers lovely views. The park is a little difficult to find on some GPS devices and many maps make it appear that most of the roads are unpaved. The trip through the park is actually a great way to get between Monument Valley/Mexican Hat and Cortez (Mesa Verde) and goes through Canyon of the Ancients and the Anasazi Heritage Center (near Dolores). I do wish that the park had better directional road signage .

It's well worth the drive. Not far from Cortez if your also going to Mesa Verde. Very nice visitor center with lots of info, picnic areas,nice restrooms and water. The trail around the monuments is an easy walk with lots to see.

This is a little out of the way, and if you can only visit a couple of places, this would not be the top priority. However, if you have seen most of the spectacular places in the Southwest, then a visit to this monument is certainly worth your time. It is a peaceful, non crowded place with some great ruins to visit.

The Square Tower Group of ruins, which is in a circular hike near the Visitor's Center, is good to see. But some of the outlying ruins such as the Cutthroat Castle ruins are even more interesting. You've got to go down some unpaved roads to get to it, but it's worth it.

the ruins are in the best shape of all the ruins that we have seen. you can get very close to them to visualize what they originally looked like. it is about a 2 mile easy walk to see all of them. the castle is huge for the time period.