Visitors to our town may be surprised to learn that there are many opportunities to explore ancient ruins near Durango. Even better if you visit during the off-season months of fall and winter.
In the most common time of the year to visit, for example, in July, the parking lot at Mesa Verde’s Cliff Palace is known to fill up before 9:00 A.M. But in February? You might just be standing at its overlook alone, watching as a light dusting of snow gently settles into an ancient alcove.
Southwest Colorado is home to one of the densest concentrations of archaeological sites in North America, and most folks who come to see them arrive during a ten-week window in late spring and summer. The rest of the year, these sites near Durango are practically ghost towns. There is a small tradeoff, however. From late October through spring, you give up the ranger-led tours and the ladders down into the dwellings, for example, at Mesa Verde. But don’t let that stop you.
Why the Quiet Season is the Right Season
The main reason to visit in the fall and winter months comes down to two words: “no crowds.” No competing with others for tour tickets, no swaths of people all around you on the trails and overlooks. There’s a beauty in the winter quietude that cannot be experienced in the summer months.
Here’s another reason: the lighting. The low winter sun travels across the sandstone, making stonework and architectural details brilliantly stand out in a way noon in July does not. Another bonus the shoulder season brings is more economical lodging options in nearby towns, such as Mancos and Cortez.
Here’s where to go in the off-season and what you’ll actually find open when you get there.
Mesa Verde National Park
The good news is Mesa Verde National Park is open daily year-round, with cliff dwelling tours and Wetherill Mesa running into late October (Wetherill closes Oct 21 this year), so early fall visits still have interior access. In the winter, Mesa Top Loop, Cliff Palace Loop, Museum Loop, and Park Point stay open, weather permitting, but tours, dwelling interiors, Wetherill Mesa, Far View Lodge, and Morefield Campground all close.
Cliff Palace and Spruce Tree House are both visible from viewpoints, and the Mesa Top Loop is a drive with short walks, which is ideal on a cold day. Check the park’s current conditions page the morning you go, allow 45 minutes of mountain driving from the entrance to Chapin Mesa, and keep in mind that in-park food is limited to the Spruce Tree Terrace, 11–2 pm.
Aztec Ruins National Monument
Travel back in time 900 years to this memorable ancestral Pueblo site. Located 36 miles south of Durango in Aztec, New Mexico, and open daily year-round (with the exception of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day), it’s the only site listed here where you can walk through the original roofed rooms and into the reconstructed ceremonial Great Kiva with a roof over your head and the original, nearly one thousand-year-old wood beams intact. This semi-subterranean structure measures over 40 feet in diameter and is the oldest reconstructed building of its kind. Ranger programs run May through September only, so off-season visitors can take the interpretive, self-guided trail. Described as combining “modern archeological findings with traditional Native American perspectives,” this trail will not disappoint! You’ll definitely want to make a stop at the museum there, too. It exhibits “dozens” of historical items and shows what daily life was like for the ancestral Pueblo people.
Hovenweep National Monument
A two-hour drive from Durango will get you to the mysterious and intriguing Hovenweep National Monument. It comprises six groups of structures made of sandstone blocks and mortar (made from sand, ash, and clay) and built between 1200 and 1300 CE. Here you’ll find multi-story towers perched, in some instances precariously, on canyon rims and balanced on boulders. Some scholars suggest Hovenweep was a place to pray for rain during great droughts, while others suggest some structures housed families and stored corn and beans to carry them through tough, dry years. Hovenweep Castle is said to have been built specifically to capture the sun’s rays at the winter and summer solstices to time plantings and ceremonies.
When you go, remember to pack plenty of water, as the location is somewhat remote, with no gas stations for long stretches, spotty cell coverage, and a visitor center with reduced winter hours.
Chaco Culture National Historic Park
Chaco is the one on this list I’d tell you to save for the right day. In this case, it’s an all-day outing or an overnight stay.
Located in northwestern New Mexico, between Farmington and Albuquerque, it’s roughly three hours from Durango. The last thirteen miles are unpaved, and that road can become impassable when wet. Call the visitor center for road conditions the morning you go. If there’s been snow, I’d suggest choosing another day.
That said, the effort of getting there is well worth it. Beginning in the mid-800s, the Chacoan people built great houses of multiple stories and hundreds of rooms oriented to the sun, the moon, and the cardinal directions, with sight lines running between them. By 1050, this canyon was the ceremonial and economic center of the San Juan Basin, tied by roads to more than 150 great houses across the region. Pueblo descendants describe it as a gathering place where many peoples and clans converged to share ceremonies and knowledge. When Chaco’s role shifted, that influence moved north to Aztec and Mesa Verde.
They were also watching the sky, closely and constantly. Knowing where the sun stood told them when to plant and when to hold ceremonies. Chaco has been an International Dark Sky Park since 2013 - the twelfth in the world, and the fourth in the National Park System. Chaco houses an observatory at the visitor center and offers views of expansive skies so absent of light pollution that you can actually see the Milky Way as more than a smudge. The evening telescope programs run in summer. But the park’s solstice and equinox programs happen at sunrise, which puts the best of them squarely in the off-season.
On the winter solstice, park at Pueblo del Arroyo, walk an eighth of a mile to the great house at Kin Kletso, and watch the year’s shortest sunrise arrive exactly where a thousand-year-old structure says it will. Bring all of your warmest clothing!
Chimney Rock National Monument
Forty-five minutes east of Durango, two rock spires stand above the Piedra River valley, and on the ridge below them sat a community of roughly two thousand people between about 925 and 1125 CE. Today, we have more than 150 documented sites in eight clusters, a testament to the rich ancestral Pueblo heritage that permeated this spot.
The Great House Pueblo, consisting of 36 ground-floor rooms and two kivas, was first built in 1076. They expanded and finished it in 1093. Two construction seasons, seventeen years apart, each timed to the return of the moon to that gap in the rocks.
Interestingly, almost nobody lived in the structure. Archaeologists think only one or two families occupied the Great House year-round and that its real function was ceremonial. It was a place that was filled with visiting notables during key ceremonies, some arriving from Chaco Canyon itself. Excavation uncovered a grizzly bear jaw in one of the rooms, and Pueblo oral tradition holds that the Bear clan originated here.
Come explore ancient pit houses and stand at the Great House Pueblo for panoramic, 360-degree views of Colorado and New Mexico. But be sure to visit while it’s open. This site does have a deadline. The gate closes on October 15 and doesn’t open again until mid-May.
(The monument was temporarily closed due to flood damage in mid-September 2026 and reopened on September 18th. Check here for current conditions.)
Visiting With Respect
More than two dozen Pueblo, Hopi, Zuni, Navajo, Apache, and Ute nations trace their histories through these revered places that many still consider sacred. Please respect that as you visit these sites.
Also, stay on the trails. Don’t touch or lean on the masonry. Skin oils can break down thousand-year-old mortar. Leave every potsherd exactly where it lies. Don’t enter unstabilized structures. No drones. No stacked rocks. Federal law protects all of it, and so should we.
Go In the Off-Season
Let’s be honest: most mountain towns don’t have this-a two-hour radius holding a lunar observatory, a drought-era prayer site, and the center of a world that once reached 150 great houses. That’s not a normal feature of a small mountain town, and we Durangotans know and appreciate that fact.
In summer, these special places belong to everyone. From October through April, more or less, it belongs to whoever’s willing to get up early and drive. Locals Tip: It’s just one more of the not-talked-about reasons people end up loving Durango.