The distance from Park Point to Spruce Tree Camp, the park headquarters, is 10.5 miles. The entire road from the park entrance to headquarters, 20 miles, is gravel surfaced and oil treated, full double width, and cars may pass at any point thereon. Although there are hundreds of cliff dwellings within the Mesa Verde National Park, the more important are located in Rock, Long, Wickiup, Navajo, Spruce, Soda, Moccasin, and tributary canyons. Surface ruins of a different type are widely distributed over the narrow mesas separating the numerous canyons. A vast area surrounding the park contains more or less important ruins of these early inhabitants, most important and easiest of access from the park being the Aztec Ruins and Chaco Canyon National Monuments, New Mexico; the Yucca House National Monument, Colorado; and the Hovenweep National Monument, Colorado-Utah. [Illustration: ROAD MAP OF MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, SHOWING IMPORTANT RUINS ON CHAPIN MESA ONLY] THE RUINS Although the Spaniards were in the Mesa Verde region as early as 1765 and the Americans as early as 1859, it was not until 1872 that the first settlement was made. In that year the Mancos Valley, lying at the foot of the Mesa Verde, was settled, but because of the fact that the mesa itself was a stronghold of the warlike Ute Indians, many years passed before the cliff dwellings were discovered. The ruins in the Mancos Canyon were discovered as early as 1874 when W. H. Jackson, who led a Government party, found there many small dwellings broken down by the weather. The next year he was followed by Prof. W. H. Holmes, later chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology, who drew attention to the remarkable stone towers also found in this region. Had either of the explorers followed up the side canyons of the Mancos they would have then discovered ruins which, in the words of Baron Gustav Nordenskioeld, the talented Swedish explorer, are "so magnificent that they surpass anything of the kind known in the United States." The largest cliff ruin, known as Cliff Palace, was discovered by Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason while hunting cattle one December day in 1888. Coming to the edge of a small canyon they first caught sight of a village under the overhanging cliff on the opposite side, placed like a picture in its rocky frame. In their enthusiasm they thought it was a palace. With the same enthusiasm the visitors of today involuntarily express their pleasure and surprise as they first view this spectacular ruin.