Monument Valley

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Image:Monument Valley 2.jpg Monument Valley is located on the southern border of Utah with northern Arizona (around 36°59′N 110°6′W). The valley lies within the range of the Navajo Nation Reservation, and is accessible from U.S. Highway 163. The Navajo name for the valley is Tsé Bii' Ndzisgaii (Valley of the Rocks).

1 Geology
2 Iconic imagery
- 2.1 The Valley in media
3 Tourism
4 Trivia
5 External links

[edit] Geology

The area is part of the Colorado Plateau. The floor is largely Cutler Red siltstone or its sand deposited by the meandering rivers that carved the valley. The valley's vivid red color comes from iron oxide exposed in the weathered siltstone. The darker, blue-gray rocks in the valley get their color from manganese oxide.

Image:Monument Valley.JPG

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Image:Three Sisters (spires in Monument Valley).jpg

The buttes are clearly stratified, with three principal layers. The lowest layer is Organ Rock shale, the middle de Chelly sandstone and the top layer is Moenkopi shale capped by Shinarump siltstone.

Between 1948 and 1967, the southern extent of the Monument Upwarp was mined for uranium, which occurs in scattered areas of the Shinarump siltstone; vanadium and copper are associated with uranium in some of these deposits.

Monument Valley provides perhaps the most enduring and definitive images of the American West. The isolated red mesas and buttes surrounded by empty, sandy desert have been filmed and photographed countless times over the years for movies, advertisements and travel brochures. Because of this, the area may seem quite familiar, even on a first visit, but it is soon evident that the natural colors really are as bright and deep as those in all the pictures. The valley is not 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.

Approach: There is only one main road through the valley, US 163, which links Kayenta, Arizona with US 191 in Utah. The stretch approaching the AZ/UT border from the north is the most famous image of the valley, and possibly of the whole Southwest - a long, straight, empty road leads across flat desert towards the 1,000 foot high stark red cliffs on the horizon, curving away just in front. The highway cuts through the mesas at Monument Pass, near which several dirt tracks leave both east and west and criss-cross the red, sandy landscape, offering a more close up appreciation of the rock formations.

The Navajo Tribal Park: Although much can be appreciated from the main road, a lot more of the landscape is hidden from view behind long straight cliffs (the Mitchell and Wetherill Mesas), east of the road on the Arizona side. This is contained within the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.

Valley Drive: The view from the visitor center is spectacular enough, but most of the park can only be seen from the Valley Drive, a 17-mile dirt road which starts at the center and goes southeast amongst the towering cliffs and mesas, which includes the "Totem Pole", an oft-photographed spire of rock 300 feet high but only a few metres wide. As of October 2006, the road was well graded and easily navigable by car. Other options for touring the valley are the many Navajo guides and 4WD jeep rental outfits, which wait expectantly by the visitor center - typical prices are around $15 for a 3-hour trip. As well as eroded rocks, this area also has many ancient cave and cliff dwellings, natural arches and petroglyphs.

[edit] Iconic imagery

Image:La Fenêtre du Nord, Monument Valley, AZ..JPG The twin buttes of the Valley ("the Mittens"), the "Totem Pole" (although the Navajo did not actually build totem poles), and the Ear of the Wind arch, among other features, have developed iconic status. They have appeared in many television programs, commercials, and Hollywood movies, especially Westerns.

[edit] The Valley in media

Director John Ford's 1939 film Stagecoach, starring John Wayne, has had an enduring influence in making the Valley famous. After that first experience, Ford returned nine times to shoot Westerns — even when the films were not set in Arizona or Utah (see The Searchers, set in Texas, but filmed here). A popular lookout point is named in his honor as "John Ford Point." For example, it was used by Ford in a scene from The Searchers where a Native American village is attacked.

The implied association with John Wayne's tough, macho character made the buttes a natural choice as the background for the Marlboro Man in the marketing of Marlboro-brand cigarettes from the 1950s.

Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West, although shot for the most part in Spain and Italy, features two scenes shot on location in Monument Valley.

The Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey features footage of Monument Valley. This footage is used as the surface of an alien planet to which protagonist Dave Bowman travels through a stargate.

Clint Eastwood's movie The Eiger Sanction was also partly filmed in Monument Valley. The "Totem Pole" feature has been off-bounds to climbers since the movie was filmed here.

In the 1980s American action/espionage television series Airwolf, a hollowed butte is portrayed as the secret hiding place ("The Lair") of the eponymous high-tech military helicopter. Monument Valley is renamed the "Valley of the Gods" in this series.

The MacGyver episode "Eagles" (Season 2, Episode 8) has shots in the Valley. MacGyver is gathering eggs from an eagle's nest on top of a butte.

The Steven Spielberg film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade includes a scene shot in the Valley.

In Back to the Future III, Marty McFly drives from 1955 to 1885 from a drive-in theatre set at the Valley's base.

In National Lampoon's Vacation the Griswold's station wagon falls apart in the Valley.

In Forrest Gump, Forrest ends his cross-country run here. He was running north on U.S. Route 163 before he stopped running.

The Dutch clown Bassie, of the duo Bassie en Adriaan, performed a rain dance in front of The Three Sisters in their Dutch television series.

In the made-for-TV movie 10.5: Apocalypse, Monument Valley is flooded from seismic acitvity.

Godfrey Reggio's documentary Koyaanisqatsi features footage of Monument Valley.

The 2003 Led Zeppelin DVD features the West Mitten of Monument Valley on the cover.

Ridley Scott's 1991 film "Thelma & Louise" features some shots of Monument Valley in its latter half as well as Canyonlands National Park.

1969's counter-culture classic Easy Rider includes some footage of Monument Valley towards its beginning.

Garth Ennis's Preacher series of comic books features a scene in which the Valley is destroyed by a massive nuclear weapon in an attempt to destroy the Saint of Killers.

[edit] Tourism

An aerial view of the valley with major buttes and mesas labeled.

While state highways traverse the valley, the most scenic locations are within Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, a Navajo Nation equivalent to a national park. Monument Valley is part of the Grand Circle, which includes the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion Canyon National Park, Capitol Reef, Natural Bridges, Hovenweep, Arches National Monument, and many other attractions. There are various hotels and motels within 30 miles of Monument Valley, but rooms are often hard to find during the peak tourist season (between May and October). Also available are various Bed and Breakfast establishments, some of which allow guests to sleep in traditionally built Navajo hogans. There are also camping facilities available. Guided tours of the park and Mystery Valley are available (the usual fee is around $100 per person), or visitors can pay a small access fee and drive through the park on a 17-mile dirt road. A visitor center and small convenience/souvenir shop stands on the rim of the valley, and includes a restaurant. Since Monument Valley is on tribal land, it is not part of the U.S. National park system, so it is not marked on many road maps as prominently as are National Parks, and on some maps it is not marked at all.