General information about the National Monument
The National Monument includes six unconnected areas and protects numerous ruins of various Native American sites. Holly Canyon, Hackberry Canyon, Cutthroat Castle and Goodman Point are located in Colorado, Cajon and Square Tower in Utah.
Number of visitors
Best time to visit: All year round
Our visits:
So far 1 visit: June 2023
Entrance fees and opening hours
- 20$/car valid for 7 days
- Covered by the America the Beautiful Pass*
- Open year-round
*The America the Beatiful pass is so to speak the "flat rate" for all Parks managed by the National Park Service. The pass costs a one-time fee of $250 and can be purchased at the entrance to each National Park, National Monument, etc. The pass is valid for 13 months.
Hovenweep NM - Square Tower
Description: Since most of the ruins, and the most accessible ones, are located around the park’s Visitor Center, we decided to hike the Square Tower Loop Trail during our visit. The trail starts right at the Visitor Center and follows a large loop along the rim of a canyon. Here, the very well-preserved ruins are strung out like a string of pearls. The trail is generally easy to walk and more or less flat. You only have to go down into the canyon once and back up the other side. But since the path is quite well-maintained, it’s not too difficult.
Trail length: approx. 2mi roundtrip
Altitude difference: approx. 32feet
Time needed: 2 hours
Difficulty level: easy
Our rating: Howenweep has never been on our routes through the southwest in all these years. Probably also because you can see similar ruins everywhere and they are not necessarily at the top of our list of priorities. However, we were pleasantly surprised by the trail. The ruins are really impressive and you can learn many interesting things about the life of the indigenous people on the display panels. The trail was very varied and we had a lot of fun discovering all the different things here.
