Monument Valley is not as large as I thought it would be. From pictures I’ve seen of the rock formations I thought they were very spread out with lots of land between. This is not the case. There are maybe 18 named rock formations in Monument Valley and 8 are viewable from the state road coming into the Monument Valley town. More are viewable from a 17-mile dirt road going through a large part of the valley, and there are a few more that can only be seen if you take a tour with a Navajo guide that goes deeper into the valley.

We’re staying in an RV Park connected to a hotel, grocery store, theater and restaurant all owned originally by a couple named Goulding. They homesteaded in this area during the time when the Navajo were just coming back into the area after being forced to walk to a small reservation in N.M. When the U.S. gave them a reservation here in their ancestral homeland, the Gouldings were allowed to stay on and they did a lot of business with the local Navajo. During the depression the Navajo people suffered terribly and the Gouldings heard that a movie studio was scouting for a location to film a western. They went to Hollywood with photos of Monument Valley and the result is that “Stagecoach” starring John Wayne was filmed here and several more movies were made here in Monument Valley, making it a tourist destination.

We chose to drive the 17-mile dirt road. We saw that people still live in the valley, some still in the traditional hogans without running water or electricity. We got some great views of the rock formations in the valley, the most well-known is the Totem Pole, which is a very tall thin straight rock spire. It’s right next to three more spires.

We also drove a few miles from Monument Valley and took a dirt road through what is called Valley of the Gods. This area was so similar to Monument Valley that I am combining the pictures into this blog entry.

Here are pictures we took of the Monument Valley and Valley of the Gods: