Denver Life Magazine – April 2019

wander road trip

88 denverlifemagazine.com | APRIL 2019

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RANCH TIME GET AWAY FROM IT ALL, FEED THE ANIMALS AND DINE AT THE CANYON OF THE

ANCIENTS GUEST RANCH; BOTTOM LEFT, LOWRY PUEBLO

stop by regularly with bags of
grapes for Sutcliffe to sample.
The tasting room is open from
noon to 5 p.m. year-round and
offers a selection of four wines,
rotated daily, with ample com-
mentary on each vintage from
Sutcliffe, who talks about the
bottles as if they’re his chil-
dren. sutcliffewines.com

Visit Lowry Pueblo
The most impressive archae-
ological structure in the re-
gion, this 40-room communal
dwelling was built around 1060 AD. What
remains almost a thousand years later gives
an impressive glimpse into the designs—ar-
chitectural and cultural—of the ancient hunt-
er-farmers who occupied it. With easy road
access to the site, you won’t have to hike
in, though you’ll want to bring water and a

snack—the ruins are complex and sprawling,

and visitors are invited to walk through them,

exploring every surviving nook and cranny

of the ancient village. Shards of 1,000-year-

old pottery dot the ground, adding to the

impression—thrilling in itself, for a history

nut—that the Lowry Pueblo inhabitants aban-

doned the site just yesterday,

rather than centuries ago.

mesaverdecountry.com

Stop at the Canyons’

Visitor Center and

Museum

For information about the An-

cestral Pueblo (Anasazi) and

other native peoples responsi-

ble for constructing the ancient

dwellings found throughout the

area, this interactive museum

and visitor center, in the town

of Dolores, is the place to start.

Two excavated ruin sites, the Escalante and

Dominguez Pueblos, are on the museum

grounds. mesaverdecountry.com

Hike the Sand Canyon Trail

One of the best features of Canyons of the

Ancients, and one that inspires love for the

area, is the impression of wildness that pre-

vails. While main attractions like the Lowry

Pueblo draw crowds, the monument’s less-

er-known archaeological sites—thousands of

them—are remote and private, most of them

hidden in plain sight. The sense of archaeo-

logical titillation that comes from stumbling

upon one is exhilarating: an Indiana Jones

fantasy come true. The Sand Canyon Trail,

a 6.5-mile out-and-back hike, is easily the

area’s best, weaving past multiple ruin sites.

Most of the ruins are excellently preserved,

waiting to be “discovered” among pictur-

esque juniper and piñon pine, cactus, yucca,

and towering red rock canyons. DLM