It was midmorning by the time we left our campsite for the last two nights (thanks, Boggy Draw Trails!), heading to the Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center & Museum. Canyons of the Ancients contains the highest known archaeological site density in the United States, although you’re more likely to see various objects, dwellings, and human remains of Indigenous people who have lived here in a museum rather than on a hike. It costs $7 to check out the museum at the Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center, but we decided to spend our time hiking the various pueblo sites that make up the Canyons. Similar to when we visited the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, the pueblos are a significant drive away – we planned a curved drive from the Visitor Center, stopping by Lowry Pueblo (24 miles away), then to Painted Hand Pueblo and Hovenweep National Monument Visitor Center (the furthest west), before looping back west to the Sand Canyon Trail System.
Lowry Pueblo: The Great House & Great Kiva
On the decent drive to Lowry Pueblo, we saw a lot of prairie dogs scurrying across the road in front of us along the way. When we first saw prairie dogs in New Mexico, we thought they looked like meerkats, and their name is indeed a misnomer – they’re a type of burrowing ground squirrel native to the grasslands of North America. It was a fairly quiet drive where we could take in the fertile scenery around us – not many cars, and the noisiest it got was when we drove onto unpaved road as we got closer to Lowry, making our RV jolt around with each hurdle.
We were the only visitors at Lowry Pueblo, which has a short trail where we saw two attractions – the first was the Great House, a 40+ room pueblo. The second was the impressive and well-named Great Kiva, a meeting place over 15 meters (nearly 50 feet) in diameter, where dances and religious ceremonies and other rituals were held. The sunken remains of this Ancestral Puebloan site were probably constructed around 1090 AD.
Painted Hand Pueblo
Our next stop was over 20 kilometers (13 miles) away, at the Painted Hand Pueblo, 13 miles away. This is where we trusted the signs and ignored Google Maps, which informed us to turn left (instead of straight at an intersection, which had a sign), which would take an hour and 5 minutes! It may have been because Google didn’t recognize the unpaved road to get there.
At this site, we saw a small pueblo that once had about 20 rooms, which was built around 1200 AD. It started to get hot as we hiked, but we saw more pueblos, and we were lucky to have the place all to ourselves again!
Hovenweep Visitor Center: Filled with Pueblos, Cliff Dwellings & Castles
At Hovenweep Visitor Center, we finally encountered other visitors, and more people along the trail. Hovenweep means “deserted valley” in the Ute/Paiute language, and in 1923 President Warren G. Harding proclaimed Hovenweep a national monument.
While the Visitor Center was closed, the hike was awesome – we saw tall towers, outlines of multiroom pueblos, tumbled stone piles, and small cliff dwellings scattered across the canyon landscape. It’s incredible to try and imagine what it was like hundreds of years ago. Along the trail, we saw that researchers are conducting an interesting experiment on Hovenweep Castle from February 2025 to February 2026. The castle has been chosen for a vibration study, which will assess how the structures in the area respond to vibration energy inputs – including from wind, earthquakes, explosions, and passive vehicles – and how this affects the deterioration of the buildings. There was cabling, solar panels and a data collection box, so visitors need to be careful that they don’t disturb the items to affect the study!
A Bumpy Ride Toward Sand Canyon
What was significantly less entertaining, however, was the undulating roads, which made our RV bounce violently up and down at some points, making us nervous about the impact it could have on our pipes immediately below. At one point, we jumped when we heard a loud crash below us, anxiously worrying that something had been damaged, but fortunately it seemed to have hit our (currently not functional) self-leveling system.
We finally arrived at Sand Canyon and Rock Creek Trail System, which entails a much longer hike to see a spate of pueblos. At the entrance, we had a brief chat with a man who’d been living the nomadic lifestyle for a while, and had ridden his motorbike all the way up to Alaska, the Arctic Circle, and many other places, although he’s been in Colorado for the last year. He gave a glowing endorsement of Sand Canyon, and while it was already late afternoon and the sun was starting to set, we decided to hike a little bit of the trail, taking Sheila with us, who at one point sidled right up to a cactus to pee!
As there were no signs saying we couldn’t stick around, we stayed at Sand Canyon for the night, enjoying a quiet and peaceful evening ahead of tackling the trail the following morning.
The last stop on Canyons of the Ancients National Monument was looping back toward San Canyon Rock Creek Trail System. Again, it’s a decent drive, but we were entertained by the fascinating views of the green-dotted, fertile western Colorado landscape, which was also at times in stark contrast to the other side of the road, which was more barren, with rich brown dirt.
Hiking the Sand Canyon Trail
When we woke up, there were already several empty cars parked, indicating that quite a few other folks had beat us to hike Sand Canyon Trail. Our plan was to hike just over 9.6 kilometers (6 miles) in and out, as the attractions were all within 3 miles into the trail – namely, Saddlehorn Pueblo (mile 1), Corncob House, Double Cliff House (mile 2), and Sunny Alcove, Tucked Award Two Story House, Wall Curves with Bedrock House, House with Standing Curved Wall (mile 3). After that, there are no more pueblos, and there are some steep switchbacks after mile 4 at a 213 meters (700 feet) elevation gain.
The pueblos were incredible, because they’re all quite high up above where we were standing, and are impressively compacted within the caves! There’s also a ton of Mormon/Brigham tea plants, Utah juniper (often right next to each other), and cacti to keep the trail interesting. It seems that this area is also popular to explore on horseback, as there are other trails dedicated to horses (and we saw lots of evidence of this with their poop too)!
In the afternoon it was all about errands – filling up on petrol, emptying our grey/black water tanks for free at a spot in Cortez (water refills were about 25c for 12 gallons, so we spent $1), laundry, and more groceries (again! We go through yogurt and drinks at an outrageous pace).
Next stop: Mesa Verde National Park!
Route Map
[…] Clarno, Painted Hills, and Sheep Rock. Sheep Rock is closest to the visitor center, but similar to when we visited Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, there's a significant drive between each […]