Spruce Tree House Overlook

Spruce Tree House Overlook is the pair of viewpoints near Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum, looking across a wooded canyon to the cliff dwelling. Its rooms sit beneath a broad sandstone alcove. This is a viewing stop, not an entry point: rockfall concerns have kept the dwelling itself closed. Stay on the trail and away from cliff edges.

The natural alcove reaches about 216 feet across and 89 feet deep. Spruce Tree House is Mesa Verde's third-largest cliff dwelling, after Cliff Palace and Long House, and the overhang gives it the deep shelter that made this place possible.

Ancestors of Pueblo peoples of the Southwest built Spruce Tree House between about 1211 and 1278 CE. Around 130 rooms and eight kivas fit into the alcove; an estimated 60 to 80 people lived here. Look for how the rooms follow the protected curve instead of spreading across the exposed mesa top.

Ten small storage rooms, or granaries, sit above the dwelling. People reached them with ladders and hand-and-toe holds, then sealed the doors with stone slabs to keep rodents out and supplies dry. Corn, beans, squash and gathered wild plants could be stored there.

The alcove shielded the site: about 90 percent of the visible walls, wood and plaster are original. Archaeologist Jesse Walter Fewkes excavated here in 1908, cleared fallen wall and roof debris, and stabilized the surviving structures. From the overlook, the broad sweep of the alcove helps explain both the dwelling's layout and its preservation.

Use the museum as your landmark; the two viewpoints are nearby. Parking, restrooms, drinking water, benches and interpretive exhibits serve this museum-side stop. For a photo, keep the sandstone roof of the alcove in the frame above the rooms. Crop too tightly and you lose the shelter that makes Spruce Tree House distinctive.