Spruce Canyon Trail

Get a close look at the interior of one of the many canyons cut into Mesa Verde.

Trail description

After leaving the Spruce Tree House Trail, you go down the canyon bottom and pass the Petroglyph Point Trail, which takes off to the left up some steps. The Spruce Canyon Trail goes straight and continues to drop. You get a nice view down the canyon from the top of a couple of switchbacks, and at the bottom of the switchbacks, you cross a small wooden bridge. The bridge is in a grove of Gambel oaks, and if you hike this trail in the fall, you will be treated to some beautiful colors.

After going down another switchback, you cross a second bridge. Like the first one, it has thick wooden planks and small-diameter peeled logs for handrails. The trail continues to descend, working its way across a pocket of shale, a finer, clay-like material deposited when this area was on the shore of an ancient sea.

The trail crosses the streambed, and at 0.7 mile reaches Spruce Canyon coming in from the right. Spruce Canyon is one of the many canyons cut into Mesa Verde that drains into the Mancos River. An old road or trail continues down the canyon, but it is blocked off; take the trail you are on as it turns right and goes up Spruce Canyon. About 0.4 mile up the canyon, the trail goes around a few large boulders, evidence that erosion is still actively at work widening the canyon.

At 1.4 miles, you reach a tributary coming in from the right, and the trail begins to climb out of the canyon, steadily gaining altitude as it goes up the east side of the tributary. After reaching the rim, the trail hooks right and crosses a broad flat area with some old stone hogan-style park service housing to the left. The trail then joins an old road through a former picnic area. At roughly 2.2 miles, you pass the Fewkes Cabin, which was originally built as a ranger station but was used instead for a museum. Jesse Walter Fewkes was one of the first archaeologists to work in Mesa Verde. The trail goes left after the cabin, reaching a crosswalk on the main road. Cross the road, continue straight ahead, skirt a small parking lot on the right, and you will be back at the Chapin Mesa museum where you started. 

Directions

Drive to the Chapin Mesa museum area, walk a few hundred feet down the paved Spruce Tree House Trail, then take the trail to the right that goes to Petroglyph Point and Spruce Canyon.