Cutthroat Castle Group

Cutthroat Castle is Hovenweep's hardest-to-reach unit. Tucked down a rough dirt road, Cutthroat Castle inspires equal parts adventure and wonder.

NPS photo

 

Cutthroat Castle is Hovenweep’s most northern outlier site. It is also the only group at Hovenweep built in and along the sides of a canyon’s drainage rather than along the canyon rim.

Nestled among the pinyon-juniper forest, and with the canyon walls rising protectively around it, Cutthroat Castle has a more intimate and secluded feel. A primitive trail winds through this beautiful scenery an offers an adventurous hike with sweeping views of the surrounding area.

 

 

Visiting Cutthroat Castle

Getting There

Stop at the visitor center for updated road conditions, directions, and a map.

Cutthroat Castle is located down an unimproved BLM road off of County Rd 10. It is 8.5 miles north of Hovenweep’s visitor center and campground. The first mile of the road is gravel. The gravel ends in a parking area for Painted Hand Pueblo (part of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument). We highly encourage you to park there and walk to Cutthroat Castle via the upper trailhead. Beyond the gravel parking area the road gets very rough - high clearance is required and four wheel drive strongly recommended. This road becomes impassable when wet.

Hiking is required to see Cutthroat Castle. Visitors can park at the upper Cutthroat Castle trailhead and hike 1.32 miles (roundtrip) to the site. With the appropriate vehicle, visitors may also drive to the lower Cutthroat Castle trailhead and hike 0.14 miles (roundtrip) to the site.

 

Visit With Respect

Hovenweep protects significant cultural sites. These places continue to be an important part of the Pueblo peoples' culture. When you visit, do so with respect and in regard to the regulations set in place to help protect this special landscape.

• Stay on defined trails at all times.
• Do not touch or enter any structure or archeological site.
• Leave everything where you found it. If you do find an artifact, leave it be and tell a ranger.

 

Available Services

There is no restroom, campground, visitor center, trash receptacle, or water available at Cutthroat Castle, so please come prepared. All of these services are available at the Hovenweep Visitor Center, located 8.5 miles south on Rd 10.

What’s in a Name?

We attribute the name "Cutthroat Castle" to archeologist Paul Martin. He wrote about visiting the site in Colorado Magazine in 1928. A local resident showed Martin the structures and told him they were in Cutthroat Gulch. Martin combined the name of the gulch with the word "castle" because the structures reminded him of European castles.

Features & Archeology

The structures of Cutthroat Castle were built and used during the Pueblo I – III periods, which lasted from 750 to 1300 CE (common era). The main feature is Cutthroat Castle, a three-story, D-shaped building perched on a sandstone boulder. Scattered around the Castle are the standing walls of several towers and dwellings, as well as several possible kiva depressions.

 

We believe this circular room (center) was an above-ground kiva. An outer wall (left)creates an outer corridor around the kiva.

NPS photo

Kivas

This group appears to have a large number of kivas. Today, kivas are places for ceremony. Ancestral Puebloan kivas were probably used for a variety of activities, including ceremony. Kivas are usually round and built into the earth, although they come in many shapes and sizes. Within Cutthroat Castle, there appears to be an above-ground kiva surrounded by an outer corridor. Other kivas at Cutthroat are resting under the earth and may appear as shallow depressions nearby.

Life at Cutthroat Castle

Pueblo culture relies on cultivating crops like corn, beans, and squash. Pueblo people use drought-resistant farming techniques, but some rainfall is still essential. In the 1100s and 1200s, prolonged drought made farming difficult for the ancestral Pueblo people. Tribal consultants from some descendant communities suggest that Hovenweep was a place for prayer and ceremony to rebalance the climate.

During this time, we also see evidence of new groups entering the Four Corners region. This meant more and more people were competing for fewer and fewer natural resources. At the same time, vibrant new communities were emerging in places like the Little Colorado River Basin and the Rio Grande Valley. For all of these reasons, over several generations, the ancestral Pueblo people followed their traditional cultural practices of movement and built new permanent homes south of the Four Corners region. As they moved, some aspects of life, such as farming, stayed the same. Other aspects changed.

Hovenweep and older communities like Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde held large ceremonial structures that took immense time and effort to build. Communities after Hovenweep have fewer spaces designed for elaborate ceremonies. One of the main reasons for ancestral Puebloan ceremony was to rebalance the relationship between people and the natural world. Tribal consultants suggest their ancestors may have reconsidered the role of ceremony in society because prayers for rain at impressive places like Hovenweep did not rebalance the climate as expected. Today, Pueblo communities still have space for people to gather, pray, and conduct ceremony, but the towers and great kivas at Cutthroat Castle represent some of the last projects of their kind in the Pueblo world.

Part of the Park

The 14-acre unit of Cutthroat Castle was added to Hovenweep’s boundary in 1956, through Presidential Proclamation #3132. Hovenweep National Monument was originally established in 1923.

 

---

Other Places to Go

 

Hovenweep's Home Base

Square Tower Group