Monument Valley Park Navajo Tribal Travel USA<< >> Hotels Monument Valley Park are kept busy because this area has become the iconic picture for the American west. Brought to the world’s attention by the John Ford movie ‘Stagecoach’. It has been the setting for more Western movies than any other site in the United States. Situated near the small town of Goulding, which was established in 1923 as a trading post. The wide flat plain will live up to all your expectations and more. It is not a valley at all but a flat sandy desert with eroded crumbling sandstone rock formations rising hundreds of feet into the air. These red mesas and buttes which tower at heights of four hundred to one thousand feet are exactly like you’ve seen on the films and TV.
The area is famous for the Navajo Tribal Park Monument Valley travel site of 91,696 acres, which sits on the Utah/Arizona border in a vast, open desert region.
It is reached along a short side road directly opposite the turn-off to Goulding. Here you will find a visitor center with great views across three of the valley's most photographed peaks.
The Navajo name is Tse'Bii'Ndzisgaii and you will be greeted with Ya'a t’eeh, which is welcome.
The visitor center has the Haskenneini Restaurant, which specializes in both native Navajo and American cuisines. There are also year-round restroom facilities and a souvenir shop.
This where the famous Valley Drive starts This is a seventeen-mile dirt road circular drive that is uneven, dusty and steep but has terrific views. The drive has lots of numbered stops at the most scenic places and a typical journey, around the loop, takes around two hours. Another way to view the valley is to hire a Navajo guide and fopur wheel drive jeep. This gives you a lot closer look and you’re able to get some fabulous photographs. I did it in a sand storm it was marvellous.
When you go into the valley itself, this way, you’ll see amazing eroded rock formations, ancient cave and cliff dwellings, natural arches and rock carving and drawings.
The park has only one hiking path, the three-mile Wildcat Trail that starts just south of the visitor center and loops around West Mitten Butte.
Going back in time Monument valley was once a vast lowland basin. And then for hundreds of millions of years, were deposited layer upon layer of sediments that gave a slow and gentle uplift. Then pressure below its surface, elevated the strata one to three miles above sea level. What was once a basin became a plateau. Over the last fifty million years the natural forces of wind and water has been cutting in to and peeling away at the surface of the plateau. This simple wearing down has created the natural wonder of Monument Valley as you see it today.
If you can, be at the park for sunset because it truly is a memorable experience to see the play of the light and the sun upon the formations. On a good day the sunsets are … AWESOME.
All around the area outside the park are numerous Navajo vendors selling arts, crafts, native food and souvenirs at roadside stands.
In the Navajo language, “Hózhóní” means “beauty all around us.” Monument Valley a truly wondrous experience. Enjoy this beautiful land. << >>
|
