If I only have a day, how should I spend my day at Mesa Verde Natioal Park? What should I be sure to see and do, and what not to miss. Can you suggest an itinerary on how to plan out my day? Thanks!

Cliff Palace, Balcony House, and Spruce House. See as many of the houses as you can. The best trail there is Petroglyph Trail, it takes 3 hours or so to do. If you can spend a night in Far View Lodge and have a meal there. Some of the tours are ranger-led and require tickets. You could do a ranger-led tour in the morning, see a house that is self-guided, then see another ranger-led house in the afternoon.

If memory serves me correctly, Cliff Palace and Balcony House require tickets but you can visit Spruce House at any time. (Please double check my possibly fuzzy memory on their website.) When we visited, we had heard you could only obtain tickets for one of the two ticketed places per day but we were allowed tickets for both on one day as the park was not too crowded. We visited the three dwellings mentioned and the museum but did not visit the other sights.

spirobulldog gave you good advice. The dinner we had at Far View Lodge was really good. I would check first thing to see what times you can get tickets for CP and BH and plan your day accordingly. BH is the move challenging place to visit of the two (you crawl through a short tunnel and climb up ladders) but it really wasn't strenuous.

I loved my visit to Mesa Verde and hope you will too!

When will this be? I ask, because different parts of the park are open/closed dependent on season.

Also, some of the tours require some climbing and crawling - do you have any limitations?

Do you want to drive around the loop and get out of car to see sites, or do you want to actually go into the dwellings?

Driving from one site to another within the park takes some time, as does driving in and out of the park from the main road.

When do you think you will arrive at park and when do you want to leave? That will help plan the best use of your time?

Have you looked at the website? It has some really good ideas and may help you to narrow down what you can/want/are able to do.

http://www.nps.gov/meve/index.htm

I have a home just minutes away, we go there all the time, so if you can answer some of my questions, I can help.

We expect to be there on Monday, May 31, and arrive around 10 am. Thanks!

OK, that means that everything will be open. It is also Memorial Day, so it could be busy.

How about my other questions??