Monument Valley, USA

You've seen the picture, now ride that road - but theres more than just one memorable road in Monument Valley.

You’ve seen that long shot down US163, with basically nothing in the foreground and the amazing buttes and rock fingers of Monument Valley on the horizon.

It might have been a travel story, a movie or even an advertisement (remember cigarette ads?) but whatever the occasion, you’ve seen that shot. It’s one of the great classic road images from the USA, a place that has so many of them.

And Monument Valley provides perhaps the most enduring and definitive images of the American West outside a John Wayne film (or even in one, like Stagecoach which director John Ford shot there). 

It’s not actually a valley in the conventional sense, but rather a wide, flat and quite eerily desolate landscape. The stark rock formations rise a hundred metres or more into the air, the last remnants of the sandstone layers that once covered the entire region.

See the road down there?

These isolated red mesas and buttes surrounded by empty, sandy desert have served as backdrops over the years for films, advertisements, holiday brochures and happy snaps. When you see the valley in real life, the surprising thing is that the natural colours really are as bright and deep as those in the pictures. As well as the impressive rocks, the valley has many ancient cave and cliff dwellings, natural arches and petroglyphs.

And there are dirt tracks all though the valley. They criss-cross the red sandy landscape, offering opportunities for a close up look at the rock formations. Keep in mind that these roads lead to Navajo homes, so exercise some discretion when you use them. The sand can be quite deep, too, another good reason for discretion! The Valley is within the Navajo Indian Reservation on the Utah/Arizona border.

The amazing buttes and rock fingers on the  horizon

The state line passes through the most famous landmarks, which are concentrated around the border near the small town of Gouldings. You can see a lot of Monument Valley from the main road, but a lot more is hidden behind the cliffs of the Mitchell and Wetherill Mesas, east of the road on the Arizona side. It is accessible from the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park (entrance $5 last time I looked) visitor centre, along a short side road opposite the turn-off to Gouldings. From the visitor centre there are good views across three of the valley’s most photographed peaks – East and West Mitten buttes and Merrick Butte.

Several dirt tracks leave to both east and west where the highway cuts through the mesas at Monument Pass, but most of the tracks also run from the visitor centre. The best way to see the formations is from the Valley Drive, a 27km dirt road that starts at the centre and goes south-east among the formations, including the Totem Pole, a much-photographed spire of rock 100 metres high but only a few wide. The road is quite poorly surfaced and difficult for ordinary cars. One theory is that it is deliberately kept in such a state to increase business for the many Navajo guides and 4WD jeep rental outfits. If you’re careful, the road should be okay on almost any bike, although the likes of a GoldWing might make hard work of it.

Should you find yourself in the area on four rather than two wheels you can always rent or take an ATV tour. Gouldings Lodge & Tours and Roy Black’s Jeep and Horse Tours in Gouldings run ATV excursion, and you should be able to rent a dirt bike as well. Further afield, Dream Car Rentals in Las Vegas has a choice of bikes that even includes a pretty wild chopper; see www.dreamcarrentals.com .

Don’t miss Monument Valley; not that you could if you were anywhere near!