Monument Valley

While waiting for my tax sticker to arrive I am studying my map once more, I see that by going off in the wrong direction for some distance I could visit “Monument Valley” the place we have all seen in every cowboy film ever made.

Monument Valley is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast and iconic sandstone buttes, the largest reaching 1000 feet above the valley floor. It is located on the southern border of Utah with northern Arizona.

The valley lies within the range of the Navajo Nation Reservation.

To see the valley you can be driven the 17 mile, 2-3 hour journey over dirt roads and dry river beds by a Navajo driver.

Just after starting the tour you will be invited into a Hogan, a wood framed and mud covered circular house, just looks like an igloo built of mud, this is the type of house the older Navajos prefer to live in, warmer in winter and cooler in summer, the door opening always points to the east, to catch the first rays of sun.

As the tour winds its way around the huge red pillars, some with large holes worn in them by wind and blown sand, some pinnacles so tall and slender you feel if you gave them a push they would fall over.

To see this vast area for real is amazing, as far as the eye can see in every direction, tall pillars rising out of a flat red plateau.