Yucca House in Cortez, Colorado

In most national parks and monuments in the Southwestern United States, one can expect certain amenities: a visitor center staffed with rangers, a bookstore, trails with interpretive signs, and at the very least, a parking lot. Yucca House has none of these things. To reach this ancestral Puebloan ruin, one must navigate a series of dirt roads through private farmland. The end point looks like someone’s driveway. The one hint you’re in the right place is a boardwalk across a grass lawn and a wooden sign pointing towards Yucca House National Monument. The short, narrow trail to the ruins is ...