TravelAwaits
Jul.20.2021
At the foot of the unmistakable silhouette of the Mesa Verde land formation, the small town of Cortez in Colorado lies among the richest archaeological centers of the U.S. Southwest. Steeped in the history of the Ancestral Puebloan people, Cortez offers a glimpse into their lives through the surrounding sites, from the world-famous Mesa Verde to Crow Canyon, and small sites you’ve never heard of.
In the center of it all, Cortez offers the best base for exploring them while learning about the ancient people who lived in the Four Corners area. Though I have visited the area often over the years, I still find new things to discover every time.
Your Guide to the San Juan Skyway Road Trip Reader s Digest Editors
There’s gold in these hills
The locals call their homeland Colorful Colorado, and a drive around the San Juan Skyway loop proves the aptness of the nickname. As you climb from dusty lowlands to snowy peaks, you ll see nearly every shade possible in nature s kaleidoscopic palette, from creamy sands and rusty bluffs to multi-hued alpine meadows. Winding through a section of the Rocky Mountains from New Mexico into the southwest corner of Colorado, the San Juan mountains were the site of Colorado’s gold and silver mining boom in the early history of the state.