MONUMENT VALLEY: BEAUTY LIKE NO PLACE ON EARTH
By Steve Wright and Heidi Johnson-Wright
We were running late on a grueling, nearly 400-mile drive from Sedona, Arizona to a ranch north of Moab, Utah when we saw the signs pointing the way to Monument Valley.
It was supposed to be the final payoff in a three-legged western trip to Sedona’s red rocks, Moab’s Canyonlands and Arches, and Monument Valley’s fabled rocky pinnacles.
But while stopped to refuel in tiny Kayenta, Arizona, we gave in to temptation. We would have our dessert before dinner, even if it meant a couple hours delay to detour through Navajo lands.
So off we went, rolling up U.S. 163 until we could soon catch glimpses of the same famous formations that lured filmmaking legend John Ford to the area in the 1940s. We stayed for a few hours, sweating in the afternoon sun and snapping pictures that we knew would be washed out by that intense mid-day sunlight. But it was well worth it. The place is so beautiful, so magical, so spiritual – it was the worth every hour of driving time we lost on our late arrival beyond Moab.
The next three days, we marveled at some of the most beautiful country in the entire west – Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Professor Valley along the mighty Colorado River and Natural Bridges National Monument – but we couldn’t wait to get back to Monument Valley. We hungered to return to the Navajo Tribal Park visitor center, to a scheduled jeep tour of the valley’s backcountry, to a few nights’ stay at famed Gouldings Lodge.
On the drive from Moab to Monument Valley, we passed the quaint small towns of Monticello and Blanding, plus the spectacular geography of Mexican Hat, Valley of the Gods, the Goosenecks of the San Juan River and the Moki Dugway, a terrifyingly beautiful stretch of road carved from the cliff face and talus slope of Cedar Mesa that plunges hundreds of feet through sharp switchbacks and steep roadways. But we paused only briefly at these natural wonders, because any delay would cut into the precious 48 hours we had to spend at Monument Valley.
We rolled into Gouldings Lodge about an hour past noon, starving and excited. There are many famous hotels throughout the world and many with more 5-star amenities than down-to-earth Gouldings will ever have. But there may be no lodging on the planet so intertwined with the history of the nearby tourist attraction that it serves.
Certainly, for thousands of years before husband and wife Harry and Mike Goulding arrived in Southeastern Utah, there was a Monument Valley. The large blocks of sandstone were compacted during the Paleozoic era, while the effects of erosion through wind and water started during the Cenozoic era.
But it wasn’t until 1924, when the Gouldings established a trading post, that the wheels were set in motion to make Monument Valley world-famous. Struggling to make ends meet during the Great Depression, Harry and Mike scraped together their last dollars to travel to Hollywood in 1938 to persuade director John Ford to film his next western in the valley.
In 1939, Ford’s Stagecoach was released to great success, with John Wayne starring. Wayne became a big star and from then, people around the world recognized Monument Valley – first in movies and later in everything from television episodes to car commercials.
Gouldings has evolved beyond a trading post into a lodge, a few cabins, an RV park, a gas station, gift shop, museum and restaurant. The restaurant has real western food – think beef stew good enough to tempt a person who rarely eats red meat – and some Navajo influences such as fry bread, an Adkins-thwarting delicacy of quick fried dough that tastes best slathered in honey.
The rooms are small and simple, but that’s fine because no one in his right mind would spend much time inside when there’s so much to see out under those high blue skies. Each room does have a small terrace aimed perfectly at the cinematic Monument Valley skyline in the distance
Since we had gone to the Navajo Tribal Park visitor center during our brief detour through the area days before, our second visit to Monument Valley was via a half-day jeep tour chartered out of Gouldings. The jeep is perfectly suited for the rough, winding, axle-busting backroads of Monument Valley.
Our Navajo tour guide stopped at a half dozen places to let us get out and take pictures of natural arches, towering pinnacles and otherworldly vistas. The only stop that is the least bit touristy is John Ford’s Point, named for the film director who revealed Monument Valley to the world. At that spot, a few vendors set up shop to sell Native American jewelry and an old Navajo horseman rides up to the jeep and poses for pictures for a few sawbucks.
Other than that, the park is completely unspoiled. There are no McDonalds, Kmarts, Holiday Inns, IMAX movie theaters, or other modern blights. The visitor center is simple and doubles as a small restaurant, large gift shop, clean restroom facility and excellent observation area – especially for breathtaking views of the famed Mittens and Merrick Butte.
The Navajo Nation charges a $5 fee to enter the Tribal Park. In addition to the excellent visitor center, the fee allows visitors to travel a 17-mile loop road winds among the rock sentinels that tower 400 to 1000 feet above.
The road is raw, and unpaved, but that’s a good thing. In dry weather, drivers who creep along can negotiate the rough road without endangering their sedan. Lots of RVers and people whose idea of tourism is seeing everything from the blur of an 80-mile-per-hour drive often ask when the road is going to be improved. The Navajo workers gently roll their eyes and answer “not anytime soon.”
“The road being rough blends in with the scenery,’’ observes Stanley Crank, a full Navajo who grew up in the area and has worked at the Tribal Park for 15 years. “If you slow down, you see a beauty here like no other.”
“Every few minutes, you capture the sense of culture around here,” he said. “It’s very magical, every day is different. It all depends on the sun position.”
What Crank has enjoyed for a lifetime, we observed in two day’s time. Monument Valley is beautiful at sunrise and sunset, but those aren’t the only times for to see spectacular hues. From late afternoon till sundown, especially on long June days, the light is forever painting and repainting on the rocky fortresses out in the valley. Blues become light purples, then dark purple, then they are lit back up to sandy red, then fiery red, then back to a blackish blue. The effect is transcendent.
“To the Navajo, they all have a spiritual meaning, religious significance,” Crank said of the spirals, buttes, arches and other magical rock formations. “This is like no place anywhere on earth.”
Indeed, with its iron oxide-created reddish hues in the sand and rock and its manganese oxide-forged black streaks coursing down its cliffs, Monument Valley is a one-of-a-kind. No slick Technicolor motion picture, no artfully posed photo layout can do justice to the full vastness and simple beauty of Monument Valley.
You have to see it for yourself. And when you do, you’ll come for a few days, but wish you’d put down stakes for a month. There is so much wonderment to take in, that 48 hours spent in the relatively small park will race by like only a moment’s detour off the highway.
Monument Valley, the barely populated piece of heaven at the Utah-Arizona border will get in your soul. Long after you have returned to the Midwest, the East Coast, or wherever you live, you will daydream of Monument Valley.
You will be at your computer, and then suddenly visions of the majestic Mittens, the Three Sisters, John Ford’s Point, Merrick Butte and other magnificent monoliths will overtake you. You will fantasize of about leaving your workaday life moving into a little trailer on the outskirts of the Tribal Park because, as Stanley Crank, the Navajo supervisor of park fee collection workers so poetically observed, it “is like no place anywhere on earth.”
Wright is a Pulitzer-nominated writer and Johnson-Wright is an Americans with Disabilities Act Coordinator. The multiple award-winning couple live in Miami’s Little Havana. Contact them at: stevewright64@yahoo.com
IF YOU GO:
• Monument Valley’s remote beauty means it is hundreds of miles from any major airport. Las Vegas is about 400 miles away, Santa Fe about 350 and Phoenix just bit more than 300. Because we were going to Sedona on the first leg of our tour, we chose to fly into Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport – which is served by virtually every major carrier in the nation. Sky Harbor: 602-273-3300, http://phoenix.gov/AVIATION
• To pinch pennies, we often reserve the smallest economy car available. But to drive through Monument Valley, you will want a sedan with a wheel drive – which is a cheaper, more fuel-efficient option to an SUV. Alamo: 800-462-5266, www.alamo.com
• Gouldings Lodge is by far the best place to stay for Monument Valley Visitors. The place has incredible history and an outstanding staff. There’s a history museum, a multimedia show on the history of the area, a trading post, excellent gift shop, a gas station, a grocery store and a restaurant. Gouldings: 435-727-3231, www.gouldings.com
• The Stagecoach Dining Room at Gouldings has very simple, straightforward, reasonably priced breakfast, lunch and dinner served by Navajo workers. About the only other dining options in the area are the little Navajo Taco and broiled mutton stands in the little shanty-like craftsmen village on the road that leads to Monument Valley Tribal Park.
• Monument Valley Tribal Park is what it’s all about, the place where you can view the fabulous Mittens and Buttes and enter the 17-mile loop road for more up-close look at the rock monoliths. The entrance fee is $5 per adult. The gift shop has some fabulous postcards of the valley and the restaurant features a very nice view of the towering rock formations. Several Navajos charter jeep tours of the valley from the Visitor Center parking lot. Tribal Park: 435-727-5874, http://www.navajonationparks.org/htm/monumentvalley.htm
• For more information on Monument Valley, Canyonlands, Goosenecks, Natural Bridges, Mexican Hat and other natural attractions in the area, contact the San Juan County Community Development Department at 800-574-4386, or www.southeastutah.org
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