Puye Cliffs Scenic Byway
Puye Cliffs Scenic Byway is a State Scenic Byway in New Mexico. Within New Mexico it covers roughly 7 miles. The map below shows its route. Use “Plan a drive” to open it in the Road Sorties route planner — already routing along Puye Cliffs Scenic Byway with scenic roads turned on, ready to add your own stops.
New Mexico's Puye Cliffs Scenic Byway follows Indian Road 565 for 14 miles entirely within the Santa Clara Pueblo, about 35 miles north of Santa Fe. It's New Mexico's only state scenic byway located wholly on an Indian pueblo, running to the Puye Cliff Dwellings, ancient homes carved into volcanic tuff and later expanded with adobe structures along the cliffs and atop the surrounding mesas. Artifacts date the earliest inhabitants of Puye to around 900 CE, and the community grew for centuries before a prolonged drought forced a move closer to the Rio Grande around 1577. The modern Santa Clara people trace their ancestry directly to the builders of these cliff dwellings, making the drive as much a living cultural connection as an archaeological site. The route itself is short, but the Puye Cliffs anchor one of the most complete Ancestral Puebloan sites open to visitors in northern New Mexico.
- Puye Cliff Dwellings
- Santa Clara Pueblo
- 14 miles
- 900 CE origins
- Indian Road 565
- volcanic tuff dwellings
- 1577 drought migration
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What is a State Scenic Byway?
State Scenic Byways are roads a state has formally recognized for their scenic, natural, historic or cultural value — each state's own curated collection of drives worth taking slowly.
Where to Stay along Puye Cliffs Scenic Byway
No campgrounds are listed close to Puye Cliffs Scenic Byway yet, but there are rooms near the route.
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