Mesa Verde National Park guide · 2 min read
Wetherill Mesa: Tram, Step House, Long House
Wetherill Mesa is a stretched-out, narrow table of land on the west side of Mesa Verde National Park, with deep canyons on either side.
Ancestral Pueblo people lived here for close to 700 years. The road ends at the Wetherill Mesa Kiosk, 12 miles past Far View, and you cannot drive beyond it. The kiosk is where the walking trails begin and where the tram leaves for sites farther out.
The tram makes four stops. Two are trailheads, for the Long House trail and the Badger House Trail. The other two are overlooks at Kodak House and Long House. From Kodak House Overlook, you can see a row of structures tucked into the gaps of a horseshoe-shaped cliff, rising in two tiers to about 75 feet.
Long House, the second largest dwelling in Mesa Verde, stretches 298 feet from end to end inside a sandstone alcove. Among its more than 150 rooms, visitors find a wide plaza, a working spring, granaries, and kivas. Access is by guided tour only, so arrange that before you go.
Step House is reached by a loop of about one mile round trip from the kiosk, which heads into Long Canyon. The cliff dwelling shares its alcove with older pithouses, so the site shows how life changed over some 800 years here. A ranger is sometimes on site to answer questions, and no reservation is needed to enter.
Badger House Community lies on the mesa top, where early pithouses are sheltered under cover. The path from the kiosk mixes gravel and pavement, and the tram can shorten the walk. For a longer outing, the Nordenskiold Site Number 16 Trail runs about two miles round trip to an overlook of a cliff village with around 50 rooms in Rock Canyon. Gustaf Nordenskiold, a Swedish scholar, excavated the site, and it carries his name.
