Imagine walking through sacred Indian land among ruins a thousand years old.  Just you, your Indian guide, and your few friends.  Cliff dwellings intact, and hundreds of pieces of painted pot chards scattered at your feet.  Petrified corn cobs still on the ground at the collapsed storage bin.   Your Ute guide tells you of the legends of long ago — history and culture on the verge of being forgotten by young Indians worried about downloading rap to an MP3 and the speed of their connection.  But the stories are not yet forgotten, and such a place is Ute Tribal Park in Colorado.  Part of the Ute Mountain Tribal Park has been set aside to preserve remnants of the Ancestral Puebloan and Ute cultures.  The Park encompasses approximately 125,000 acres around a 25 mile stretch of the Mancos River, north of the Four Corners area. Within the park are hundreds of surface sites and cliff dwellings, Ancestral Puebloan petroglyphs, and historic Ute wall paintings and petroglyphs.

The Tribal Park is operated as a primitive area in order to protect its cultural and environmental resources, and tours are ONLY permitted with a Ute Indian guide.