Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is approximately 174,000 acres, so there are many places which the public may visit, which are not well publicized. Sand Canyon Trail, beginning just 2 miles west of Kelly Place, is highly visited and on some days the small undeveloped parking area cannot hold the number of vehicles of people who wish to go hiking, biking and horseback riding. Here are just a couple places along Road G in McElmo Canyon where you can go to find remnants of the Ancestral Puebloans without those parking problems. Cannonball Mesa: Travel west on Road G along the rocky cliffs and old ranch holdings. About 9.9 miles west of the Kelly Place road sign, you will see a gated turn-off on the right. You may pass through the gate and continue on after closing the gate. Continue on this dirt road (high clearance vehicle recommended), for another 2 miles and you will come to the Cannonball Mesa pueblo complex. You can see more details and pictures on this website: ...

Yes, it will take you an entire day and you still won’t see everything—even in winter when some of the park is closed.   In the summer, there are several ranger-guided tours you may take.   They cost $4 per person and may be obtained a day in advance at the park Visitor’s Center near the entrance or the Colorado Welcome Center on Main St. in downtown Cortez.   If you are going with children and don’t have a problem crawling through a short tunnel, Balcony House is the best tour.   You have no other option for viewing Balcony House except for this tour.   We generally do not recommend the Cliff Palace tour because you are never going into the ruin, only in front of it.   You can see Cliff Palace directly just above it off of Cliff Palace Loop or from a distance on the Mesa Top Loop overlook.   You may do the first option in winter if snow doesn’t close the road to Cliff Palace.   The Mesa Top Loop is open in winter.  The above p...

We host various school groups here at Kelly Place B&B and are still finding new places to dig and recover Anasazi buildings and artefacts. Here is one school group well into the project: