Sunday, July 15, after five restful weeks in Durango, Colorado, we packed up the RV and headed west to Monument Valley, Utah.The valley is not really a valley in the conventional sense, but rather a wide flat, sometimes desolate landscape, interrupted by the crumbling formations rising hundreds of feet into the air, the last remnants of the sandstone layers that once covered the entire region. The entire area of Monument Valley encompasses nearly
2,000 square miles of land in northeastern Arizona and southwestern Utah and sits at an average elevation 5,564 feet above sea level. Although Arizona does go on daylight savings time the Monument Valley is on daylight time so they will be on the same time as Utah. The area lies entirely within the Navajo Indian Reservation. The Navajo have designated 29,817 acres of land as Monument Valley Tribal Park, which can be explored through a 17-mile unpaved drive, or by a guided jeep tour. We decided to take the guided tour. (of the 20 people on the tour with us I think there was only one other couple that were from the US)
The average temperatures range from a low of 25*F in the winter to an average of 90*F in the summer. Rainfall averages about 8 inches a year (maybe that could account for the low water pressure in the RV park).
As you crest hill or round a curve, a unique world unfolds before you. Monument Valley provides perhaps the most enduring and definitive images of the American West. The isolated red mesas and buttes surrounded by an empty sandy desert have been filmed and photographed countless times over the years for movies and commercials. What fascinates people most about Monument Valley is its incredible rock formations, including buttes, mesas, and arches, many rising over 1,000 feet tall above the sandy plain.
The unique rock formations have been sculpted over the ages by the erosive forces of wind and rain. The color of these rocks formations are deep orange and red, stained by iron oxide and tarnished with black streaks of manganese oxide.
The present scene has changed very little from the time when Hollywood fell in love with it in 1938 when John Ford and John Wayne came out here to film the movie Stagecoach and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Monument Valley has been the location for over 16 major motion movies and scores of commercials.
This area is still a traditional Navajo homeland. Many Navajos live here in the valley. They are by far the largest Indian tribe in North America. More than 180,000 live on the Reservation which is about the size of West Virginia. They call their reservation The Navajo Nation, and in many ways they do operate like a small independent country surrounded by a very large country.
Photo 1: Taken from Highway 163 as you approach Monument Valley
Photo 2: The road that leads past the Left Mitten and the Right Mitten Buttes
Photo 3: Merrick Butte
Photo 4: Candy in front of Mitchell Mesa
Photo 5: The Three Sisters
Photo 6: Camel Butte
Photo 7: John standing in front of John Wayne's Boot
Photo 8 - 9 - 10: Views of the Valley
Photo 11: The Hub - which not only looks like the center of a wagon wheel, it is also the geographic center of Monument Valley.
This is truly an amazing place and one that should not be misses.
That is all for today. Until later,
Candy and Johnny
There are more photos posted in the blog below.
