Santa Fe Day Trip, Tour the Puye Cliff Dwellings

If you're looking for an easy day trip from Santa Fe, why not spend an afternoon touring the historic Puye Cliffs, the ancient dwellings of the Pueblo Indians? Driving time approximately 1 hour.

Be sure to call first!

However a word of caution before heading out, call -505-901-0681 or email www.puyecliffs.com/ first ! This goes not only for Puye Cliffs, but any pueblos, historic places, or museums in New Mexico. Why? Because more often than not these places close early, or are closed for the day. This is due either to a religious holiday, feast day, or in the case of Puye Cliffs, which I tried to visit last year, a fire. This is my third trip to NM and I've had this happen to me on 4 separate! And every time it does I kick myself for not calling first. FYI, New Mexico is a big state and you spend a lot of time driving long distances. So do yourself a favor and phone first, you'll be glad you did!

Directions:

The best way to get to Puye Cliffs from Santa Fe would be to take U.S. 285/U.S. 84 North to the Los Alamos exit, go west on 502 until you reach Rt. 30 and go North (right) until you see the Valero gas station on the left hand side of the road. It's here where they have the Welcome Center, the place you have to buy your ticket for the tour at. It's strategically located inside the gas station, right by all the snacks and soft drinks. How clever I thought! Anything to get the tourist's to buy more junk than they already planned on spending for the admission!

Wouldn't be surprised if they set-up more sites this way in the future. So much for the free enterprise system!

Choose from among 3 tours

There are 3 separate tours, tickets run anywhere from $7.00 on up to $35, respectively. The first tour is The Harvey House ($7) a self-guided tour of two buildings, one is the Interpretive Center and the other a gift shop. The Interpretive Center was closed when I was there, but the gift shop was open, although it was small and rather unremarkable. I was told by the rather amiable young woman running it that initially this was a B&B run by Fred Harvey, and was known as the Harvey House. FYI, Fred Harvey started the first hotel chains in the US to accommodate weary travelers who were traveling by train. Of all his chains, this was the only one built on an Indian reservation. Other than that, there was not much to see here and I wouldn't recommend driving all the way out here from Santa Fe (and paying $7) for this particular tour.

The second tour offered is the Dwellings Tour ($20) which starts along a path right next to the Harvey House. This leads you right besides the actual cave dwellings, it costs $20 and lasts an hour. I was told later by our tour guide you can actually go inside the caves, via the ladders. Originally I had wanted to go on this tour but was talked out of it by the gas station clerk. I think it was because it was the last tour of the day and no one was signed up for it. The third tour is of the Mesa Top, which consists of being taken to the top of the Mesa by van and shown some ancient pottery shards. These are placed Strategically on tree trunks. I got bored by the third tree trunk after hearing the same spiel over and over again, so I just wandered off and took some pictures. About the only highlight of this tour is actually going inside the kiva, which was formerly a gathering place. This lasts about an hour and costs $20.

The third tour, called an Adventure tour, a combination of tours 1, 2 and 3 costs a total of $35. a whopping savings of $5, if you want to look at it that way!

My advice would be to take the Dwellings Tour, that is assuming you are up for it! It can be somewhat strenuous walking on steep slopes at high elevations. So if you're not in reasonable shape go for the Mesa tour.

For a unique experience climb into a kiva

About the only thing I can recommend as far as the Dwellings tour goes, is going down into the kiva, a gathering place built underground that was not only cool as far as the temperature goes, but an interesting place to sit around and take it all in. I'll admit, it was kind of nice just sitting around and enjoying the quiet, it was very peaceful and serene and didn't feel at all claustrophobic. I really felt the presence of the ancient Indians.

Still I don't know if it justified the $20 price tag they were charging for the entire tour, but going into the kiva held my interest and gave us all a needed break from the non-stop chatter of the tour guide. One added note, before Puye Cliffs closed, due to a fire, admission was only $6.00, which in my minds eye was what it was really worth.

don't lose your balance...

Other than going into the kiva, the only part of the tour that made it even remotely memorable was when one of my fellow tourist's foot unexpectedly got caught in the ladder on the way up. Although she wasn't overweight she appeared to be physically weak. Our tour guide had to come to her rescue and push her from behind......literally! It seemed kind of comical at the time, kind of like a scene from I Love Lucy! After about 5 excruciating minutes she finally got untangled with the help of the tour guide, who I'm sure wasn't use to exerting much energy at the end of the day. At least not on a tour!

Other than that minor mishap, it was your standard issue tour complete with guide expecting a tip at the end. Unfortunately no one, including the lady who got tangled, was in a giving mood. To add insult to injury, our tour guide even had to go back with this same person and help her find a necklace that she had lost in of all places...the kiva!

In the end I was glad (and I'm sure so was the tour guide!) that it was finally over. About the only thing that made it worthwhile for me, besides going into the kiva, were some pictures I took of the grounds and the shards.

Surprisingly they don't charge extra for taking pictures, which is pretty commonplace on Indian reservation's, including burial grounds. The excuse is the grounds are sacred...however if you pay a fee you can take as many as you want! I'm sure they'll eventually charge something, but for now it's free.

Note: This site had been closed for approx. 9 years due to fires in the Los Alamos area to the west of it. When I was there in October I could see they did a pretty good job of cleaning it up because everything was in tact, I didn't see anything on the grounds that was charred or any dwellings that were burned down. However, before the fire the tours use to be self-guided, but are now led by tour guides. From what I understand the pottery shards, red ware and black ware, indigenous to the area were being stolen by the tourist's. That's the official reason, I was told.

So if you have a few hours to kill while staying in Santa Fe, go to Puye Cliffs for an afternoon. I can guarantee you it will be an adventure!

Puye Cliffs is (probably) open daily from 9AM to 4PM and tickets must be purchased first at the Puye Cliffs Welcome Center, located in the Valero gas station right before the entrance of the dwellings. Remember to call first!

Puye Cliff Dwellings National Historic Landmark
104 South Riverside Drive
Española, New Mexico 87532
Phone 1-505-901-0681
Fax 505.747.2458

　
Sources:

www.puyecliffs.com/