expectations and plan ahead.

We did two tours - Cliff Palace and Balcony House. I'm so glad we did both. The tours made the visit to such a remote place more worth it for the kids. After a while, it all kind of looks the same, but the tours helped to make things stand out. The tours are where you have to plan ahead because online tickets sell out very quickly the day they are available. If I remember, it is about two weeks prior to the date of the reservation when they become available to buy online. There are no additional tickets at the Park.

If tickets are not available, I would do hikes after looking at some of the ruins. I wouldn't spend significant time on some of the repetitive ruins on the various loops.

Great hike is the Petroglyph Point Trail. It is marked as strenuous. It is not strenuous, but I think the park service marks it as such because of the large number of people that would otherwise push themselves to go up and down places they shouldn't go who have mobility issues. Rangers talked about how frequently they have to plan/execute rescues using ropes - brutal for the park rangers. It was a very fun hike. Our kids are 7,11,15, and it was no problem. That was the only hike we did, but I'm sure there are some other great ones.

Our tours were first thing in the morning, so we arrived early in the park, and the sunrise was really beautiful driving up to the top of the mountain.

There is an overlook at one of the pull-outs where you can see the Square Tower House. After we did Cliff Palace and Balcony House, just looking down at that structure was enough for us. Other ruins we checked out were Far View Sites, Sun Temple, some pit houses. I can't remember if there were others.

We did about 1.5 days in the park and took the rest of our time to drive up the million dollar highway towards Ouray. We just drove, but you can take a train from Silverton to Ouray - a little pricy for us, but I've heard it's fun. There is a mine in Ouray you can tour. The drive on the highway was beautiful - especially in the fall colors. We stopped in Durango and walked around mainstreet. There's definitely options for things to do. Enjoy!