Balcony House cliff dwelling tour, Mesa Verde National Park, CO

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
5/22/2024	0.5 miles	?	?	?	355.9 miles

Parking: 

• Fees & Passes - Mesa Verde National Park (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)
• There is a fee. The National Park Service annual pass will work here.
• Balcony House Trailhead

Map:

• Gai GPS app
• Maps - Mesa Verde National Park (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

Directions: n/a

Our second cliff dwelling tour was for Balcony House. This tour is not for you if you have a fear of heights or small spaces. We had to climb a 32-foot ladder and crawl through a tunnel. This tour does allow you to walk in the cliff dwellings, unlike the Cliff Palace tour. The ladders are sturdy, and I did fine. I just didn't look down.

After our tour, we drove around a loop and stopped at every overlook. So many! They had houses from different periods, not all cave dwellings. 

The campground has a huge laundry building, open 24 hours. We ate dinner there while doing a load of laundry and charging our phones. I returned later in the evening to do some sketching before returning to my tent.

Up we go

These beams are as old as the cliff dwellings.
Amazing they can last outdoors so long.

View from inside the cliff dwelling.

They originally would have had ladders to get out.

A shorter ladder climb on the way out.

Original steps that were used to access the dwellings.

Another shorter ladder.

Dinner in the laundry building.