Monument Valley

When I was growing up we watched a lot of cowboy films.  The scenery at Monument Valley is exactly as I’d imagined cowboy country.  It turns out a lot of films were made here in just five square miles.  The view is awe inspiring, the sandstone peaks and pinnacles (buttes) rising from the terracotta coloured valley floor up into the blue sky.  Occasionally the odd cloud would brush the tops of the buttes.  The terrain made me think how hard life must have been for the early settlers.  They only get six inches of rain a year here.

Monument Valley is just over the border from Arizona into Utah so there was a one hour time difference as Arizona has decided not to apply daylight saving time!  There is a 17 mile self-drive through the valley, but the track was rough and we were in the Mustang so didn’t dare embark on it.  The heat when we arrived was scorching so not a good time for walking.  Instead we sat on our balcony and drank in the view.  All the rooms at The View Hotel in the Navajo Tribal Park look out over Monument Valley.  It is one of the few options and the only one with a direct view of the valley.  It is owned and run by Native Americans so it provides employment meaning that people can stay close to their homeland and cling on to their culture.    

Every evening in the summer the hotel screens Wild West films that were made in the area, in an outside setting – John Wayne was showing when we were there – brought back many childhood memories! 

We sat and watched the sun going down – the buttresses and pinnacles taking turns to glow red and orange as the setting sun kissed them with its burning rays.  We slept with the curtain open so as not to miss sunrise, which seemed to begin at 4.30am.  The desert floor glowed as the sky turned from inky black to midnight blue.  The sun crept up peering above the first buttress before filling the valley with its glow. 

There is a four mile walking trail – the Wild Cat trail, but it was too hot to do it and we were in rattlesnake country.  If we had stayed for longer it would have been good to have gone out on horseback – the scenery really is suited to it.

Next stop was Flagstaff.  En route we stopped for lunch at Cameron Trading Post – the guacamole was delicious!  The ceiling of the restaurant was made of intricate moulded tin – we later learnt that as well as being decorative, tin ceilings are used to help stop fires spreading.