Mesa Verde Country: A Mountain Bike Trip You’ll Remember

Mesa Verde Country offers up such a wide variety of world-class trails, you’ll leave smiling regardless of your ability level. 

It’s safe to say that, if you live near any major population center or metropolitan area, there’s probably a mountain bike trail within a thirty-minute drive of your front door. If there’s not, you probably don’t have a mountain bike or a desire to even own one.

Even here at home – in the ‘flyover’ zone of Cincinnati – far from the East or West Coast riding scenes, there are plenty of trails for me to ride and discover within that thirty-minute window. If I expand that window to a two-hour radius, there are close to 1000 different trails that I could ride on any given day.

If you’re wondering why I mention that 2-hour window, it’s because major mountain biking publications have featured the trail networks for certain cities, then mentioned that the best and most desirable trails are 2 hours away. For me, a 2-hour drive encompasses several other major metropolitan areas – Dayton, Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Lexington – each with several major trail networks and, in some cases, vastly different terrain and trail types.

Why do I mention this at all in an article about Mesa Verde Country, a region that’s a 23-hour drive from my home?

Because I rarely travel somewhere else to ride strictly because of the trails. I might ride in Lexington with friends so they can stop in and visit the in-laws afterward. Or we go to Columbus because there’s that brewpub with really great beers we can visit afterward. Then, there’s the indoor bike park in Dayton because it’s not stopped raining for three weeks. We travel to ride, at least partially, because of what there is around the trails. And from that aspect, Cortez more than delivers a wealth of history, experience, and dining options.

About Cortez & Mesa Verde Country

Located in the far southwest corner of Colorado, Cortez is the epicenter of Mesa Verde Country and sits at 6200 feet of elevation, and boasts some of the richest archeological sites in the region. The most celebrated are the Canyon of the Ancients and Mesa Verde National Park, both home to significant numbers of cliff dwellings, as well as the Crow Canyon Archeological Center, Hovenweep National Monument, Cowboy Wash, Hawkins Pueblo, Lowry Ruin, Mitchell Springs, Mud Springs Pueblo, and Yucca House National Monument.

The area is also a significant agricultural center, boasting a healthy livestock population, sod farms, and orchards, which grow apples, peaches, pears, plums, and raspberries. 

Evidence of the expansive farming community can be found at the weekly farmers’ market that takes place throughout most of the growing and harvest seasons. Along with plenty of local meat and produce, you can find baked goods, coffee, spices, jewelry, pottery, fiber products, gifts, and more. The market is easy to find right in the center of town and opens at 7 a.m. It’s a great place to fuel up before heading out for a ride, too.

The bounty of the area shows up in the local restaurant scene as well, with ‘farm to table’ dishes being a point of pride for many of the food establishments in town.

Day 1 – Getting There and Settling In

I arrived in town on a Wednesday afternoon. Getting to Cortez from Cincinnati was fairly easy with a flight into Denver followed by a puddle jumper into Durango – the closest sizable airport. From Durango, it was about a 45-minute drive into Cortez. On the way into town, be sure to stop in at the Mesa Verde Country Visitor Center for trail maps and other visitor guides.

I checked into my hotel, the aptly named Retro Inn. If you’re a fan of Schitt’s Creek, the Retro Inn has echoes of the show’s Rosebud Motel – a classic roadside motel with updates for modern travelers. The rooms are comfortable and are decorated with movie and TV-themed posters that add to the retro vibe. Rates vary, but they seem to be no more than $100 even at the height of the tourist season.

If hotels aren’t your style, the area has plenty of B&Bs, cabins, guest ranches, campgrounds, RV parks, and other options for lodging.

After settling in at the hotel, I drove my rental car to Cortez’s Kokopelli Bike & Board to pick up my rental bike. Located right on the main road through Cortez, KBB has a wide selection of rental bikes as well as plenty of gels, bars, and other supplies you might need on the trail. Their rental fleet includes hardtails, full-suspension, and fat bikes, as well as e-bikes from Specialized, Devinci, and Trek. It’s a good idea to book your rental in advance and be sure to give yourself plenty of time on arrival to get properly fitted to the bike. You can also rent helmets, hitch racks, and other items at the shop.

I got my first helping of farm-to-table food at the aptly named Farm Bistro where I met up with Preston Dillon, who would be my guide for my next several days of riding. Though we’d talked on the phone in September, it was great to take the time to meet in person before we started hitting the trails. Preston and I started our meal with zucchini fritters and an antipasto plate, and I enjoyed a yak burger for the main dish along with a couple of local beers.

Preston was able to give me the full beta on the trails we were going to ride. I intended to do a short ride the following morning in Canyon of the Ancients Park before meeting to try out the legendary Phil’s World trail system in the afternoon. Day 3 would take us to Boggy Draw Trails.

Preston went on to family commitments, and I took in Wild Edge Brewing Collective. The focus at Wild Edge is on community, and they make it happen with local ingredients, locally-sourced foods, and guest taps from local cideries.

Day 2 – Sand Canyon and Phil’s World

After breakfast at the fifties-themed Beny’s Diner, I drove northwest out of Cortez to Sand Canyon in the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument. Coming from Ohio, I was concerned about riding at the higher elevations of Southwest Colorado, but Sand Canyon actually sat about 1000 feet lower in elevation than downtown Cortez. Was it perfect for altitude acclimation? Probably not, but I figured it was better than nothing.

Sand Canyon is a mixed-use trail that is open to hikers, horse riders, and mountain bikers. Trail reviews classify it as moderately challenging, and for my mountain biking skills, I’d agree with that. I struggled with finding trail markers at times and with maneuvering an unfamiliar bike over unfamiliar terrain. Still, Sand Canyon offered an up-close view of cliff dwellings and canyons that I did not get the rest of the trip. Indeed, the park boasts more than 6000 documented archeological sites over its 6.5-mile length.

The trail gets challenging towards the end as it grows steeper, with more rocks and switchbacks. Still, if you want that Moab-type, slickrock experience without driving all the way into Utah, Sand Canyon is a great option.

It goes without saying that you should always carry water with you, but Sand Canyon sits at a slightly lower elevation than Cortez, and temperatures may be hotter and drier, so plan accordingly. 

A tubeless tire setup will be your friend here. One small off-trail excursion during my ride yielded a couple of needles in my ankle, and, unbeknownst to me at the time, several in my rear tire.

Preston and I had planned a late afternoon ride at Phil’s World, so I stopped for lunch at the Wigglin’ Pig in Cortez. As you would guess, pork makes up a major part of the menu here, and you’ll find it on sliders, mixed in with mac & cheese, and in their grilled cheese sandwiches. While it’s not a place for vegetarians, if pork is not your thing, there are plenty of beef options as well.

I had a few hours until the afternoon ride, so I took the opportunity to wash off some of the dirt and rehydrate back at the hotel.

Later that afternoon, we were off to the iconic Phil’s World trail system. How iconic, you ask? Singletracks.com ranks the network as #1 in Colorado and #3 in the world. Honestly, I could have just spent my entire trip here. Singletracks shows the total distance at 27 miles, but recent trail-building efforts have upped that to nearly 50 miles.

I’ll be candid here. There are more technical trails in Ohio, and I can pack more climbing into a couple of loops at my home trails than I did in an 11-mile loop at Phil’s World.

But I rarely have as much fun at home as I did at Phil’s World. While its climbs rarely tip past 200 feet, you’re rewarded with long flowy descents that are reminiscent of a rollercoaster ride. While the soil was sandy and had the potential to be a little loose, recent rains had created some hero dirt for us.

Our ride took in portions of the Coco Race Loop, Lemon Head, Lemon Peel, and Rib Cage trails.

Coco offers a nice flowy start before you hit the turn-off for Lemon Head. A short climb of less than a half mile is rewarded with a fair bit of descending and riding along some rock ledges with views of the surrounding area. From there we climbed up towards Rib Cage. Had I known what was coming, I would have been thinking ‘click, click, CLICK!’ like the uphill parts of a coaster. After a short rest at the top, we pointed our bikes downhill and started the whoops. While I was off the brakes most of the time, not knowing what was over the top of the next hump kept my speed down, but I still had plenty of fun. It was definitely a trail that I would have loved to do over and over to learn where I could really go full gas.

I’ll let BKXC do the video honors:

While I saw plenty of full suspension bikes on the trail and on car racks, I really would have loved to have my hardtail for this trail. Some sections were like a narrower BMX Supercross course!

Had we not been losing daylight, we could have ridden further. There are more than 27 miles of trails just in the ‘south’ part of the network and there are connecting trails to newer sections.

Since it was the end of the season, the trails were pleasantly uncrowded as well.

For dinner, we headed back into Cortez to the Loungin’ Lizard. Like the Farm Bistro, the Loungin’ Lizard’s menu and drink selections had a strong emphasis on farm-to-table cuisine and sourcing locally. Their menu is extensive, with everything from comfort food to wood-fired pizzas and traditional entrees, and local beef and poultry.

After dinner, I got a shower and drove over to Dolores to EsoTerra Cidery for a drink. Taking advantage of over 5000 local apple trees, EsoTerra hand picks their apples and carefully blends juice from a wide selection of varieties to make their ciders. Ciders are fermented for a minimum of six months with a number of different yeast strains and can be bottle conditioned for over a year and a half.

Day 3 – Mesa Verde and Boggy Draw

I woke up early on Day 3 to a mildly upset stomach.  Knowing I had a full day ahead, I dragged myself out of bed and picked up a bagel and a decaf Americano at The Silver Bean – a converted Airstream trailer that serves as part coffee shop, part community center, and drive-thru.

I ate my bagel in the parking lot of Mesa Verde National Park before driving in and exploring by car.

Mesa Verde is home to some of the best-preserved Puebloan archeological sites in the United States. Covering more than 52,000 acres, the park has more than 5000 distinct sites and 600 cliff dwellings, making it the largest archeological preserve in the States. If you want any reminder that European settlers are recent visitors to this continent, the park has evidence of indigenous people settling in this area as early as 7500 BC. Even the Puebloan people are ‘recent’ inhabitants, making the area their home starting at around 750 BC.

The Puebloan people thrived using a combination of hunting, gathering, and subsistence farming of crops such as corn, beans, and squash, and built their first dwellings in 650 BC. The cliff dwellings that we see today are relatively recent but still date to the 12th Century.

Elevations in the park top out at nearly 7600 feet, and it’s worth the view to drive up to Park Point to take in a view of the entire Four Corners region.

Again, being towards the end of the season, there were very few crowds. I can imagine that car traffic would be heavy in the high season here, so plan your day accordingly, as there are no quick ways to get out of the park and back to Cortez once you’re in.

Still in the park, I passed Far View Terrace on my way out, so I stopped in there for a sandwich and tchotchkes at the gift shop.

I made it back to the motel at about 1 and finished recuperating. I talked to Preston and made plans to meet at Boggy Draw at around 4:30. When loading the bike into the car, discovered that my rear tire was completely flat. Luckily KBB had included a tube (but no tire irons), and I was able to get it changed and was only 10 minutes late to meet him.

Boggy Draw was my third trail system of the trip and the third ecosystem as well. Boggy Draw has a base elevation of 7578 feet, so the area is generally cooler and moister than Cortez and Sand Canyon. As such, you’re riding through a Ponderosa Pine forest, making it a great choice for when it may be hotter at the other trails.

We rode the Boggy Draw Loop, but the entire network takes in more than 60 miles of trails.

Like Phil’s World, this trail was fast and fun, and we sped through the 8 miles in less than 45 minutes. While there are some forest road crossings, the trail is clearly marked and you’re spending most of your time in the trees or flowing through alpine meadows. The fall colors were beautiful, and overall, the trail was a perfect end to a great couple of days of mountain biking.

After riding, I followed Preston to his hometown of Mancos. The drive there from Dolores was incredible, with the San Juan mountains looming up in the distance.

We had dinner at Mancos Brewing Company. The draw here is, of course, the beers, and you can typically find about 20 different ones on tap at any time. They also serve up a fine wood-fired pizza.

Belly full and hunger satiated, my trip was coming to a close and it was time to start to think about heading home.

Wrapping It Up

Mesa Verde Country offers up a wealth of world-class riding options and plenty of archeological history within easy driving distance of a home base of Cortez. Whether you want a Moab-like desert experience, hard-packed singletrack, or alpine meadows, you’ll find plenty to keep you occupied for a multi-day trip. Even in the high season, you’ll find Cortez offers plenty of affordable options for lodging, food, and drinks smack dab in the middle of nearly 600 miles of trails.

Be sure to check out the surrounding towns of Dolores and Mancos for other recreation and dining options.

The riding season typically opens up in April and can go as long as October before the area starts to get snowfall at night. Temperatures in the summer easily reach into the nineties, so be sure to hydrate.