Monday, October 21, 2024
After spending a great day on Chapin Mesa in Mesa Verde National Park last year, I kept an eye on all of the backcountry tours offered this summer to see if the park would have anything new we hadn’t seen yet. I was about to give up hope when late in the season they started offering a tour to Oak Tree House that was only available from Friday through Monday for a few weeks at the very end of the season. The only date we were available to go was going to be on the very last tour of the season which happened to line up perfectly with our drive home from a weekend visiting the ruins and rock art at Wupatki National Monument and Mystery Valley in northern Arizona. Luckily, I was able to secure two tickets for this tour and we were able to spend a couple hours on Monday morning visiting these interesting ruins in Fewkes Canyon. It was certainly a great place to finish up our three-day weekend in the Four Corners region!
Before meeting up with the rest of the group before 9:00am, we drove around the Mesa Top Loop after sunrise and stopped at the Oak Tree House Overlook to see where we would be going.
Our group left right on time from the Sun Temple Overlook and quickly started the descent into Cliff Canyon via the Fewkes Canyon Trail.
There was a great view across to Cliff Palace just before we started climbing down a ladder.
This was the only ladder along the Fewkes Canyon Trail.
Here’s our group rounding Sun Temple Point and heading up into Fewkes Canyon.
The hike was only about a half-mile, so it didn’t take very long until we were standing in front of Oak Tree House, which I learned later was originally known as Willow House.
Of course, I took many photos of the ruins while we were there…
Milling Bins in a Kiva
On our way back out of the canyon we walked right below Mummy House.
In this photo you can see the ladder we used as we climbed out of Cliff Canyon.
