Monument Valley Arizona
Monument Valley is located on the southern border of Utah with northern Arizona. The valley lies within the range of the Navajo Nation Reservation near the town of Goulding and is accessible from U.S. Highway 163. The Navajo name for the valley is Tsé Bii' Ndzisgaii (Valley of the Rocks).
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-grey rocks in the valley get their color from manganese oxide.
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 ore, which occurs in scattered areas of the Shinarump siltstone.
While state highways traverse the valley, the most scenic locations are within Monument Valley Tribal Park, a Navajo Nation equivalent to a national park. Because of the remote location, many tourists fly into the valley from Grand Canyon or Lake Powell as part of a larger tour to an airstrip at Gouldings Trading Post. Guided tours in an open bus are available, or visitors can pay a small access fee and drive through the park via dirt roads. A visitor center and small convenience/souvenir shop stands on a hill just west of the Mittens.
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.
The Valley in film and television (see here for a more exhaustive list):
- 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.
- 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 was portrayed as the
secret hiding place ("The
Lair") of the eponymous high-tech military helicopter. Monument
Valley was renamed the "Valley of the Gods" in this series.
- Back to the Future III and National Lampoon's Vacation have scenes
in the Valley.
- 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.
