The Tribe

The Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation is located in Southwest Colorado with portions extending into Southeastern Utah (White Mesa), and Northwestern New Mexico. This is the homeland for the Weeminuche band of Indians. Approximately 2029 Tribal members live, work and use the Reservation that encompasses 597,288 acres of trust land, and 27,354 acres of fee land.

The Ute Mountain Ute Reservation is located within Montezuma and LaPlata counties in Colorado, within San Juan County in New Mexico and within San Juan County in Utah. The property borders Mesa Verde National Park to the northeast, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe to the east, the Navajo Nation to the south and west, and a mix of U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) public lands and private lands, including the City of Cortez, to the north.Tribal Headquarters is located in the town of Towaoc, approximately 11 miles south of Cortez, Colorado in the southwestern corner of Colorado.                                           

The community of White Mesa in San Juan County, Utah is separated from the main portion of the Reservation and consists of 8,456 acres of trust land and 4,359 acres of fee lands. The community of White Mesa is 12 miles south of Blanding, Utah on U.S. highway 191.  White Mesa lies in San Juan County, Utah, and the surrounding property is a mixture of BLM land and state ownership. 

The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe is recognized as a sovereign Indian Nation. Reservation lands are currently held in trust for the entire Tribe. As a federally-recognized Indian Tribe, the federal government has a trust responsibility and a treaty obligation to protect the natural resources of the Tribe. The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe operates under a consititution and a federal corporate charter consistent with the Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934 and approved in 1940. 

The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe assumes the primary responsibility for the health of its environment. The Tribe’s consititution provides authority for the Tribe to adopt and enforce codes to protect land and water resources on the Reservation. 

The Ute Mountain Ute Reservation lies on the west side of the Continental Divide in a region known as the Colorado Plateau. Elevations on the Reservation range from approximately 4,600 feet above sea level to almost 10,000 feet above sea level on the Sleeping Ute Mountain. Topography here ranges from alluvial fans and flood plains to moderate canyons dissected with relatively broad valleys and broad gently sloping plateaus and mesas to high relief steep topography, upland summits, narrow valleys and steep canyon walls. Many of the sloping plateaus, mesas, and canyon walls are forested, primarily with a mixture of pinyon and juniper. Much of the area around the Sleeping Ute Mountain and the canyons and mesas north and south of Mancos Canyon fit this description.

The Ute Mountain Ute Reservation can be divided into six climatic zones and is classified in general terms is characterized as a high desert plateau. These zones have different climatic environments which are reflected in the different vegetative associations they produce. Vegetative associations in these zones range from sagebrush scrub and pinyon-juniper in low-lying areas, to fir-spruce-aspen and ponderosa pine forests scattered across upper elevations.

The Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation provides a diversity of habitats that support a wide variety of wildlife species, including, mule deer, elk, black bear, mountain lion, golden eagle, coyote, and turkeys. Other wildlife species include, ducks and geese, passerine birds, hawks, small mammals, amphibians, and reptiles. Carp, red shiners, fathead minnows, channel catfish, roundtail chubs, and several suckers are found in the perennial streams that occur on the reservation

The contiguous part of the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation, and lands in Utah, are all part of the San Juan River drainage basin. The San Juan River flows a few miles south of the Reservation in New Mexico, then turns northwest and flows across approximately four miles of the southwestern portion of the Reservation, near the Four Corners.

 The Mancos River is the main tributary to the San Juan River from the Reservation, draining nearly 800 square miles of Tribal, Federal, and private lands. It enters the northeast corner of the Reservation, from Mesa Verde National Park into the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park, and flows to the southwestern corner of the Reservation. It joins the San Juan River in New Mexico just outside the southern reservation boundary, flowing approximately 70 stream miles. The Mancos River drains part of the LaPlata Mountains, all of the south facing part of the Mesa Verde and Tribal Park cuesta, and the southern half of Sleeping Ute Mountain and areas south by way of Navajo Wash and its tributaries, Aztec Wash, and smaller tributaries. On the western side of the Sleeping Ute, water flows ephemerally in Cowboy, Mariano, Coyote, and Marble Washes, which empty directly into the San Juan River in Utah.