Earth Time – Hearing the Rocks – Monument Valley Navajo Nation Tribal Park

 Monument Valley is where God put the West

 John Wayne, circa 1950

Monument Valley viewed from Goulding

'This is where the earth meets the sky.’ is what people who live in the Valley of the Rocks say about this otherworldly place.  Those who live here understand that this magical basin has sustained their people through simple living and an appreciation of what the land has given them. 

Yá’át'ééh – Welcome  

Tsé Bii’ Ndzisgaii (Valley of the rocks, Clearing among the rocks, White streaks amid the rocks) or Sacred place of beauty and light, is a land of marvel and amazement.  It is regarded as an enormous hogan, or Navajo dwelling, with the two isolated stone pinnacles to the north, now known as Gray Whiskers (far right inside of wagon wheel above) and Sentinel Mesa (left of the wagon wheel above), as its door posts. The Navajo people consider the two soaring buttes known as the Mittens (below) to be the hands of a deity.

Famous Mittens – Hands of deities (left and center)
and Merrick Butte (right)

This magnificent and sizable valley boasts sandstone masterpieces that tower at heights of 400 to 1,000 feet, outlined by scenic clouds (and now, quite often contrails, unfortunately) casting shadows that graciously roam the burnt orange desert floor. The fragile pinnacles are surrounded by miles of mesas and buttes, shrubs and trees, and windblown sand.  Their tall presence can be almost daunting.  The angle of the sun accents these graceful formations, providing scenery that is simply spellbinding.  The landscape overwhelms, not just by its beauty but also by its sheer size. 

There is much to see along the valley’s 17-mile loop drive, even if many of the views are of the same formations, because of the various angles, as some of the narrower buttes look quite different from one side compared to the other.  Their color and exotic shapes changing with the lengthening shadows of the late afternoon.  This space is both beautiful and desolate.  It is full of solitude and reminds me of our incredibly temporary significance.  Its bareness is interrupted by giant sandstone monoliths slicing into the sky.  They seem strategically placed to make beautiful compositions for photographers and painters. 

Inside the valley, only fifteen vehicles can drive the loop at one time, one going in as one comes out.  At the pay booth, I am told the wait will be approximately 90 minutes before I can head down.  Looking around, I only see two other vehicles and hope my wait will be much shorter since it is already after lunch.  I slowly approach the entrance gate and say hello and good afternoon to the guard, a young Navajo woman, in her native language.  She is quite surprised, gives me a big smile, and lets me go in right away with what I think was a wink...  I always find that being considerate enough to address people in their own language goes a long way.   The adventure thus begins.  

Following a bone-dry washboard track, the pick-up tires raise a cloud of fine orangish-red dust across the valley floor even at low speed.  Unpaved, this once treacherous road was called ‘Billy-Goat Highway’.  The undulating sandstone cliffs are a faded red in the strong afternoon sun. Lizards skitter under bush and into holes.  The sweet fragrance of sage wafts up with the rising heat.  

I am allowed to stay approximately two hours.  In the afternoon light, the red-rock spires and mesas, sculpted in such a multitude of shapes, rise high above the dust-laden emptiness.  I arrived mid-afternoon and now, with the sun setting in the west, Monument Valley is behind me, silent in a purplish half-light.   

Monument Valley is not a national park or monument.  It is a Tribal Park owned by the Navajo Nation. The 92,000-acre (143 square miles) park straddles the Utah and Arizona border and was the first of its kind ever formed in the United States. It's run by the Navajo similarly to how the National Park Service runs America's federally protected lands.

Brigham’s Tomb, just outside of Monument Valley
Seen from campground where I stayed for the night

Monument Valley has always been considered a sacred place by the Navajo. Given its remote location, it escaped the Spanish invasion in the 17-18^th centuries that disrupted Indian culture in other southwest locales.  The valley’s isolation, in one of the driest and most sparsely populated corners of the Southwest, helped protect it from the outside world. There is no evidence that 17^th-18^th century Spanish explorers ever found it, although they roamed the area and came in frequent conflict with the Navajo. 

Even early intrepid American travelers skipped this part of the US, usually heading for the Rocky Mountains instead.  While the Navajo avoided Spanish occupation, they would not elude the Americans. In 1862, Col. Kit Carson was tasked with rounding up the tribe and relocating them to a reservation in Bosque Redondo, NM. The Indians fled, and in 1868 the government relented, and the land eventually was returned to the Navajo.

And as expected, ‘The land bounced between Anglo and Native American control for decades because of the prospect of finding gold or oil there,’ says Robert McPherson, the author of several books about Navajo history. ‘Only when white people thought it was useless for mining, did they finally give it back to the Navajo.’  

Today, the valley floor is still inhabited by Navajo, 30 to 100 people, depending on the season, who live in shacks without running water or electricity. ‘They have their farms and livestock,’ says Lee Cly, acting superintendent of the park. ‘If there’s too much traffic, it will destroy their lifestyle.’

North Window Overlook

But it was Hollywood that ultimately put Monument Valley on the map.  The first film by John Ford, Stagecoach (1939), put both Monument Valley and a new actor, John Wayne, on the proverbial map. All thanks to Harry Goulding.  Ford chose Monument Valley because, to his mind, the desolation and isolation of the bluffs and red sandstone captured the essence of the hardscrabble life of the wild west. 

There is a creation myth about how John Ford found Monument Valley.  It starts with Harry Goulding, a sheep herder and owner of a trading post in Monument Valley packing up and heading to Hollywood with his last $60 and photographs of the scenery as an act of desperation during the crushing poverty of the great depression.  Goulding showed up at Ford’s offices and somehow, against all logic, convinced Ford that he should film his upcoming western in the corner of Arizona that was hundreds of miles from the nearest train station and only accessible by a dicey dirt road.  Ford eventually filmed parts of six of his most famous movies there.

John Ford Point (foreground overhang)
You can have a picture taken of you on a horse here...

Few filmmakers are more strongly affiliated with a specific place than John Ford is with Monument Valley. The legendary Irish-American director turned the valley’s little-known landscape of towering red sandstone buttes and mesas into an amphitheater for the human struggle against implacable nature. Ford and his star John Wayne each claimed they discovered the area. In fact, Monument Valley’s place in Hollywood history was secured by Harry Goulding, a Colorado-born sheep rancher-turned-trader to the valley’s Navajo population. 

No other piece of real-estate has defined the American psyche of ‘The Old West’ more than Monument Valley.  Hollywood would make it famous.  John Ford, who filmed westerns in the valley, called it the ‘most complete, beautiful and peaceful place on earth.’ 

She wore a yellow ribbon, 1949 movie still, Internet archive

Poster for the movie She wore a yellow ribbon

What really impressed me about Duke was he could stay up late at night,
playing cards and losing every hand and drinking,
but he was still up early every morning,
and knew not only all his lines, but everyone else’s too.

 Ben Johnson, Costar (1949) 

List of movies filmed here. The Vanishing American (1925). Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Searchers (1956), Sergeant Rutledge (1960), How The West Was Won (1962), and Cheyenne Autumn (1964) are all classics filmed in Monument Valley. But the site has been used in a wide variety of other films including Easy Rider (1968), 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968), The Eiger Sanction (1975), National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983), Back To The Future Part III (1990), Forrest Gump (1994), and The Lone Ranger (2013). And many more. 

Stagecoach, 1939 movie still, internet archive

Famous part of the road to Monument Valley where
Forrest Gump ended his long marathon run

The western genre which launched Monument Valley into Hollywood fame actually includes literature as well. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper; Mark Twain’s classic Roughing It; and Zane Grey’s novels all inspired the evolution of the film industry in the valley.

Elephant Butte (tour bus included for size perspective)

There is power in the earth. You can feel the energy of the rock formations if you submerge yourself in the stillness.  The Mittens, considered to be the hands of a deity among the Navajo, offer their blessing and perhaps protection as people pass by.  The rock, the wind and the sky speak in a language lost to the modern world. But words are not needed. It is a magical and primal language, that connects on an entirely different level. 

These aren’t mountains, or canyons, or even just big rocks, but something else. They are monuments. Describing them doesn’t do them justice. You need to visit Monument Valley yourself to truly appreciate the grandeur of this magical place!

Harsh light makes it difficult to take a decent picture
Three Sisters (L) and Mitchell Mesa (R)

In its description of Monument Valley online, www.utah.com says: ‘Monument Valley isn't a national park. It's not even a national monument. But it's as American as it gets.’

 

Funny, Monument Valley is just about as American as it gets; if you define ‘American’ as a rather complex relationship between Native Americans and the Europeans who eventually settled on their land, with a little bit of Hollywood thrown in.

Camel Butte (R), Cly Butte (L)
Most of the formations were name by Goulding

The Thumb aka The Cowboy Boot (L) and the back of Cly Butte (R)

Rain God Mesa

Hogans in foreground of Merrick Butte
There are no paved roads, power lines, or running water
Just a few scattered Navajo hogans

Rivers are flowing less often. Cottonwood and willow trees are vanishing. Shallow aquifers no longer have year-round water. Sacred springs, ceremonial and medicinal plants are disappearing along with eagles, cranes and bees. Raising sheep and other livestock, integral to traditional Navajo culture, has been declining for decades because of less forage and water. Since the late 1970’s there has not been enough water from streams to grow crops.

Yei Bi Chei and Totem Pole (spires to the right third)

Close up Yei Bi Chei grouping (L) and Totem Pole (R)

Navajo elders remember snows from the 1940’s that were chest high on horses. They mention grass so thick and tall that sheep could get lost in it and soil that stayed damp through spring. It was a world they understood and identified with, but weather patterns now are extreme and unpredictable with no seasonal order. ‘The wind today is different,’ says Janis Perry. ‘It is upset with us. You can see it in our sheep. They are constantly fatigued.’

View from Spearhead Mesa

Dead juniper in front of Window Overlook

From hot air balloon to give you better sense of perspective
By Amanda Williams

I could say much more about the actual geology of this place but it is not what I came here to see, experience or study.  Here, one’s senses are heightened. Akin to a primal awareness where one feels the presence of the earth and the smallness of man. It’s an ancient power of the ages, that speaks to one’s soul a hundred years past and a hundred years hence.

Next, Mexican Hat, Raplee Ridge and more on the Navajo Culture