The Four Corners region, where Colorado meets Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, is the site of historic ruins, lively towns, vineyards and year-around indoor and outdoor activities and attractions.
The mountains, mesas and canyons of the southwest corner of Colorado have been home to Native American communities for thousands of years. The earliest inhabitants were nomadic. But about 2,000 years ago, the Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) occupied the area, and then disappeared about 1,300 years later, leaving many fascinating remnants of their civilization throughout the region.
The Anasazi raised towers and built cities into the cliffs of Mesa Verde, There are thousands of sites in the area. Many are open to the public, and there are local museums and institutions dedicated to exploring and interpreting this culture and archeology.
Mesa Verde National Park provides guides and step-on-tours inside the Park.
Talking Stones Hiking Tours covers ancient archeological sites and rock art panels in the Four Corners area.
Far Out Expeditions runs customized backcountry tours for families, groups, and scientists.
For serious outdoor types, there’s hiking, biking, boating, rafting, horseback riding, hunting, skiing and some of the best trout fishing in the West.
Durangois the gateway city to the Four Corners. Here you’ll find everything you would expect of a world-class resort town – romantic lodging, fine restaurants, specialty shopping with skiing nearby in the winter and great trout streams to fish in the summer.
Cortez is a smaller town farther west, near the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park and the chief archeological area of Colorado. Not far from town, cattle graze and grapes grow along side the ruins of an ancient civilization. The Mc Elmo Valley hosts two award-winning wineries.