Monument Valley (and beyond)

While Antelope Canyon might not have been well known prior to the 1990s, images of Monument Valley, also on the Navajo Nation, are globally known and iconic of the American West, thanks to John Ford and the movies he shot there, beginning with Stagecoach (starring John Wayne) in 1939. In all, Ford would shoot scenes for ten movies here. And, of course, the formations of Monument Valley form the backdrop from the famous scene in Forrest Gump when Forrest suddenly ends his cross-country running after 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours.

I had considered stopping here during a family trip west back in 2009, but Monument Valley is sufficiently out of the way to make the logistics of adding it too challenging, and while we effectively circled around it, we didn't actually visit. Which meant that I absolutely wanted to visit this iconic location on this trip. While we could have just driven around the loop road in the valley, I was concerned about how well our car would handle the conditions of this unpaved road. That was one reason to consider a guided tour. But a tour would also take us deeper into the valley, into areas closed to the general public, and would provide us with a guide who could talk to us about what we were seeing. I decided on a two-part, all-day tour. In the morning, we would explore Monument Valley, and after a break for lunch, we would explore the adjacent Mystery Valley, once the home to the people known the the Navajo as "Anasazi" and now commonly called "Ancestral Puebloans".

Because the tour was inside the Navajo Nation, the meeting time was at 8 MDT, we had to give ourselves an extra hour in calculating our wake up time, as we were staying in Page the night before, on MST. With a drive of almost two hours from Page, we had to leave by about 5am MST to be sure we weren't late for our tour. Luckily, we properly set our alarm and had no issues during our drive across the Navajo Nation in the early morning light. We arrived at the starting point of the tour with plenty of time to spare.

The tour started out with stops to see the formations made famous by the various movies filmed here. Along the way, our tour guide shared stories about the history of the Valley, as well as Navajo stories he learned from his grandfather (and which he is now passing on to his grandchildren). We also visited John Ford point, with its panoramic vista. We then left the publicly accessible road and headed deeper into the valley. We stopped at a traditional Navajo hogan, where we met a woman to hand weaves traditional Navajo rugs and listened to her talk about her life here in the Valley. It was an important reminder that this valley isn't just a tourist attraction...it is the ancestral home for these people.

We then finished our tour of Monument Valley by visiting several of the arches located in the southern reaches of the Valley. While these might not be as impressive as some of the arches we've seen elsewhere, they were unique, and played a role in the Navajo stories our guide shared with us. Our guide also had suggestions for where to stand for photos, as well as tips for capturing interesting images of the arches.

All too soon, our time in the Valley was over, and we found ourselves back at the start of the tour. Here we stopped for a brief lunch break, before we headed out for the second part of our tour. This tour was to the west of Monument Valley itself, on the other side of the ridge of formations that forms the western boundary of the valley. Here, we visited several sites with evidence of settlements by the Ancestral Puebloans, with ruins, as well as petroglyphs and pictographs on the rocks. There were also some additional arches to visit as well. The "road" here was very primitive, little more than tracks in the sand, and driving here required significant use of four-wheel drive and reminded us a little of some of the driving in the bush in Africa.

Eventually, our tour was completed and we were back at our car, ready to move on to our next stop. But even as we drove away, we weren't quite finished with Monument Valley. As we headed north on US 163 into Utah, we took a moment to stop at the site where the Forrest Gump scene was filmed. This has become a popular spot, where lots of people stop to take photos and shoot videos. As a result, the speed limit drops from 65mph to 45mph, in a effort to improve safety. The shoulders have also been widened and paved since the movie was made, again, improving safety along this stretch. Even though it wasn't exactly peak tourist season, we were still far from alone on this otherwise lonely stretch of road, and getting a shot without others in it was difficult enough that I didn't really try very hard. Still, it is an iconic vista, and was our last view of Monument Valley before we finally moved on.