Cliff Palace Tours

Cliff Palace showing heritage elements and building ruins as well as a small group of people
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Explore this immense 700-year-old cliff dwelling, the largest and most famous ancestral residence in the impressive Mesa Verde National Park.

Located within a massive sheltered sandstone alcove, Cliff Palace has been wonderfully preserved for over seven centuries. Visitors are often awed with the sheer size and scale of the dwelling, the largest in the national park. Explore the dwelling’s rooms and ceremonial sites, which give a sense of what life would have been like for its ancient inhabitants .

Learn about the first documented discovery of Cliff Palace in the 1880s, when two cowboys who were riding across the mesa looking for stray cattle spotted it. Although it was snowing, they could distinguish something that they called a “cliff palace” within “a magnificent city.” They often returned to the site during their later cattle-herding expeditions. It took until 1909 for the dwelling to be fully excavated.

Take a ranger-guided tour of the site to find out more about the people who inhabited the dwelling. Cliff Palace is located at an elevation of about 7,000 feet (2,000 meters). Accessing the site is a strenuous yet exhilarating experience. Wear comfortable but sturdy shoes, as you will be expected to climb ladders and ascend up slightly uneven stone steps.

View several of Cliff Palace’s 150 rooms and 23 kivas (ceremonial gathering places), which likely housed a total population of about 100 people. Because of its size, experts believe that Cliff Palace was possibly used as a social and administrative site, where many ceremonies would have taken place.

Admire the intricate construction of the dwelling’s rooms and passageways, which were built using sandstone, mortar and wood. Ancestral Puebloans are thought to have carved the sandstone blocks using hard stones from the riverbed and created mortar using soil, water and ash. Cliff wall paintings were used to decorate the interior of the dwelling, using earthen plaster of different colors.

Cliff Palace is located within Mesa Verde National Park and can only be accessed via ranger-guided tour. Tours last for about an hour. Purchase tickets at the Mesa Verde Visitor and Research Center prior to entering the park.

Plan a trip to see Cliff Palace

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Prices and availability subject to change. Additional terms may apply.

Reviews of Cliff Palace

4.8
Top Destination
5 - Excellent
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4 - Good
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" "4 - Good 15.436241610738255%
3 - Okay
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" "3 - Okay 1.342281879194631%
2 - Disappointing
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1 - Terrible
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5/5 - Excellent

Verified traveler
Jul 2, 2019

Ranger Nighteagle was very helpful, patient, funny and educational.

5/5 - Excellent

Verified traveler
Jun 23, 2019

We got advance tickets for the evening tour. Max of 25 and lasted 90 minutes.

5/5 - Excellent

Jeff
Jun 15, 2019

It is very hot and arid at Mesa Verde NP, so you need to bring and continually drink more water than you normally do. If you think that you've brought enough water, double the amount and you'll probably be close to right. About one-half of the people on our tour were complaining of headaches from either dehydration or the altitude. That said, the Cliff Palace is amazing and worth the effort required to get there and back.

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