Everyone has seen this place before they arrive. Monument Valley, on the Utah-Arizona line inside the Navajo Nation, has been the backdrop for so many Westerns and car commercials that the first sight of the buttes feels like a memory. Mitten Buttes, Merrick Butte, the thin Totem Pole: great red sandstone towers left standing as the softer rock around them wore away, rising up to a thousand feet above a flat floor of sand and sage. The colour shifts through the day, orange at noon, then deep red and violet at dusk.
John Ford filmed here for decades, beginning with Stagecoach in 1939, after a trading post owner called Harry Goulding reportedly travelled to Hollywood to show photographs and persuade the studios that the valley was worth the journey. John Wayne became linked to the landscape. More recently, a stretch of US 163 north of the valley became famous as the place where Forrest Gump ends his cross-country run, and riders stop there to take photographs with the road running straight to the buttes.
This is Navajo land, a tribal park rather than a national one, and it is run by the Navajo people, who live in scattered homes and graze sheep on the valley floor. There is a seventeen-mile dirt loop that goes among the buttes, in bad condition at times, and local guides run tours in open vehicles. The Navajo Nation observes daylight saving time, unlike the rest of Arizona, so clocks can be confusing. Respect the land, stay on the roads, and ask before photographing people.
The ride in, along US 163, is spectacular, a straight ribbon of tarmac that runs between mesas and low desert, with long views and hardly any traffic. Wind can be fierce, and summer heat is extreme, so early starts are best. Fuel and supplies are available at Kayenta, about thirty-three kilometres south, and at Mexican Hat to the north, so fill up before you reach the valley. Dawn and dusk are the best times, with low light and long shadows, and you can pick a viewpoint and wait for the colours to change. Mutton stew and fry bread are the local dishes.