Mesa Verde Nat'l Park Questions - July 4th Week
 

I'm not sure of the timing but we are coming from Montrose and it looks like we'll have Tuesday afternoon, a full day Wednesday, then Thursday morning of July 4th week before returning to Montrose. We are staying overnight in Cortez so we have to plan for the additional travel back and forth. I think we'll have time for all 3 guided tours: Cliff House, Balcony House and Long House. We know this is probably one of the busier weeks at Mesa Verde - any suggestions on what order to do the guided tours? We would also probably like to do a hike - Petroglyph Trail, perhaps? How do we best fit this all in?

Thanks for your help.

See what is available from the park service. Cliff Palace and Balcony house are on the main mesa, Long House is on Wetherill mesa, if I remember correctly. It makes sense to do Cliff palace and Balcony House on the full day and Long house on the half day. You might be able to get your reservation for the tour on line. Go to www.nps.gov and click on Colorado and then MV to check it out. Might be good to look at the map of the park to plan your day. They were doing road work on the way in when we were there in early May. If it isn't done that will add to the time it takes to get into and out of the trip, so plan accordingly.

When you do the guided tours, the people selling the tickets will ask which you want to do and then will pick the times for you so you will have enough time to do them and travel between areas.

You can buy tickets on Tuesday for Wednesday, you can't buy them online or any further in advance than the afternoon before.

Wetherill Mesa should be done on one of the "half days", Cliff Palace, Balcony House and Spruce Tree should be done on the full day, and the hike of Petroglyph on the other "half" day.

It will be HOT, bring plenty of water with your for all of the activities.

You can also drive the loop tour, nice views of the dwellings. There are also great hikes that go out of the parking lot in the campground area, I have done the first 5 listed here:
http://www.nps.gov/meve/planyourvisit/hiking.htm
[knife edge and point lookout are great]

There are also some new hike tours this summer:
http://www.nps.gov/meve/parknews/10_02_veops_2010.htm

Pictures from Petroglyph Trail hike:
http://picasaweb.google.com/DebitNM/MesaVerdeMay2009

Info on Restaurants in area:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/705...s;topic-705273

We did three houses and petroglyph trail in two days, but didn't see any of the wetherill area. The more houses you can see, the better. They are all a little different. We were staying in the park though.

I have heard that the Park Service does not allow the Cliff Palace and Balcony House tours to be done on the same day. Any idea if this is true?

Absolutely not true. I have a home in the area and have done it a number of times when we have guests. You tell them what you want to see and they figure out the time needed to see one and drive to the next tour.

Craig,
I swear I read that somewhere, but when we got there, we had no problem seeing the tours as we wished. Just see as many as you can, a couple of them are nice and they are don't require a ranger. They do all somewhat look alike, yet they are very different at the same time.