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 Template:Coor dm). 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). Image:Monumentval.jpg
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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.
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.
Iconic imagery
Image:MonumentValley 640px.jpg Image:John fords point 640.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.
The Valley in film and television
- 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 featured footage of Monument Valley. This footage was used as the surface of an alien planet that protagonist Dave Bowman travels to 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 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.
- The MacGyver episode Eagles (Season 2, Episode 8) had shots in the valley. MacGyver was 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.
- Back to the Future III and National Lampoon's Vacation have scenes in the Valley.
- It is the spot in Forrest Gump where Forrest ends his cross-country run. He is running on U.S. Route 163.
- 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.
Tourism
Image:Wfm monument valley annotated.jpg 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.
External links
- Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park website
- American Southwest Guide
- Detailed geological guide
- Energy Information Administration notes on uranium mining and its decommissioning
- Photos of Monument Valley - Terra Galleria
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