Can Do Trail Ancestral Pueblo Ruins

The Can Do Trail leads 0.5 miles from the McPhee Recreation Complex mesa top campground to the Ridge Point Lookout then continues another 0.5 miles down the cliff face to the boat ramp area.

McPhee Reservoir is centered on the Big Bend of the Dolores River in southwest Colorado. I started at the Ridge Point Lookout and descended most of the way, stopping to avoid the mud from the last of the melting snow. 

The area to the right of the boat ramp is the site of the former busy lumber town of McPhee which from 1924 to 1948 was the busiest lumber town in Colorado. The best views on the Can Do Trail are along the segment that descends toward the boat ramp.

The mesa top segment was designed as a no barriers trail and has benches every 300 yards. The trail segment leading to the campground area has a bench that is close to the cliffs. This area of forest is mostly Pinon Pines and Utah Junipers. I noticed that most of the rocks along the trail are rounded, as if this area was once a stream bed. There are small patches of sagebrush interspersed among the forested areas.

Among the highlights of the Can Do Trail is a small Ancestral Pueblo ruins site. This site is in the trail segment between the campground and Ridge Point. There is an interpretive sign indicating that this site has a circular tower and several room blocks and dates from around 970 AD.

The circular tower is clear but the room blocks are mostly unexposed. The sign also says this site was visited by pot hunters before it was studied by archaeologists. I spent about 1:00 hour for about 2 miles on a 60 F degree mid April day.

Ridge Point Lookout Trail-McPhee Reservoir

The Ridge Point Lookout Trail is the road in the McPhee Reservoir Recreation Area that leads to the campground, boat ramp and a lookout point. The McPhee Reservoir is Dolores River water in southwest Colorado, a little downstream of the town of Dolores.

In winter, when the normal trails are muddy or snow covered, the paved road provides a hard surface to hike on. The road may be closed to vehicles or it will have very little traffic. It is a 4.2 mile round trip to the lookout point, with the option to continue down to the lake by the boat ramp.

At the lookout point there is a concrete compass with interpretive signs identifying the geographical features around the 360 degree views. This is one of three easy to get to view points in this area. Nearby, the Anasazi Cultural Center Interpretive Trail ends at a good view point. The best view point in the area is at Park Point, the highest point in Mesa Verde National Park.

The views to the north and east include two of the nearby mountain ranges, the LaPlatas and the San Miguels with the reservoir in the foreground. The LaPlata Mountains had a lot of gold mining activity, mostly in LaPlata Canyon a little west of Durango.

Many of the trails in the San Miguels near Telluride still have ruins sites and ghost towns along the way. To the west the Abajo Mountains in Utah are visible. Below the view point is the site of the timber town of McPhee, which prospered in the early 1900s, but is now flooded. McPhee processed the Ponderosa Pines which dominate this part of the San Juan National Forest.

There is the short Can Do Trail running 0.5 miles from the nearby campground to the Lookout Point and then another 0.5 miles down the hillside to the boat ramp area. In winter, the trail will often be snow covered and muddy. The information sign says there is an Anasazi site about half way from Ridge Point to the campground.

This area had one of the largest archaeology projects in history, associated with the reservoir project. There are two excavated sites at the nearby Anasazi Heritage Center and several more on the same hill. This hike takes about 2:00 hours for 4.2 miles. I hiked it on a 45 F degree mid November day, a few days after an early winter storm.