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Published: July 15th 2008
Navajo Indian on a horse
Monument Valley - Arizona/UtahThe drive out of the Grand Canyon’s North Rim was as good as it was coming in, not that it should have changed much in 24 hours - and what a fantastic commute for the park rangers.
Our next stop was Page; a town that sprang up when the Glen Canyon Dam was built and Lake Powell was born, creating tourism in the shape of a huge watersports playground. However, just before we arrived in Page we stopped off at the stunning Horseshoe Bend of the Colorado River.
We had a wander around Page the following day and took root in a nice little bar with it’s own Microbrewery, where we watched some rare TV, and got talking to a Dutch couple who had to sit there and endure their national team being dumped out of Euro 2008, 3-1 by the Russians. But they took it well, and it was good to be sat at a bar talking real football……not the American kind! The couple had been to a place we were due to go the following day, and warned us of it being packed with tourists making it difficult to get photographs.
The place they were talking about
Horseshoe Bend - Arizona
The Colorado River meanders around it was Antelope Canyon, and due to it being on a Navajo Indian Reservation means that you’re unable to enter the area without being part of a Navajo guided tour. The Navajo name for Upper Antelope Canyon is Tse' bighanilini, which means "the place where water runs through rocks." The English name was given because pronghorn antelope used to roam in the area.
Antelope Canyon feels very much a spiritual place, and knowing it’s Red Indian country makes that feeling all the more real. During our trip around the world we’ve been into several photo galleries of renowned landscape photographers, and there’s not one who wouldn’t give up their youngest child to spend a whole day here alone with their camera and tripod; although to be truthful most of them already have, but you get the point.
The photos we’ve seen of this remarkable place begs the question: Does a place like that really exist? Or is it all just photoshopped?
We spent a beautiful clear, warm, still evening with a glass of wine looking out over Lake Powell before our tour started the following morning. The tour lasts an hour and a half, unless you choose the photographers’
The Left and Right Mittens
Monument Valley - Arizona/Utah tour, which is two and a half hours and allows you nothing more than time and therefore, a chance to frame that perfect shot without a tourist in it. Of the allotted hour and a half, 40 minutes is travelling time, leaving 50 minutes to spend in Upper Antelope Canyon, which has been formed over thousands of years by wind, rain, flash floods and sand. In places it’s very narrow, hence the name Slot Canyon, or Corkscrew Canyon, and this section is probably only 100 metres long. But within this short distance may well be the most naturally contorted and photogenic corridor of sandstone in the world.
The wonderful story about Antelope Canyon is that it was once a very remote and deserted location (long before Page and Lake Powell were built), when it was discovered in 1931 by a 12 year old girl called Susie Tsosie, who, whilst herding, was looking for a single lost sheep when she stumbled upon this strange twisted tunnel. It conjures up a delightful vision of a little girl entering a hidden world and appreciating it enough to go and tell someone about it. It would be nice to believe that for one
moment she forgot all about that lost sheep she was looking for as she meandered through this truly captivating sandstone passageway.
Antelope Canyon is still owned by the Tsosie family today.
Unfortunately it was all true, the canyon does have too many visitors to be able to take your time and get those precious photos, but because I had a tripod I was treated very favourably by our tour guide who ushered me into position before anyone else in our group, and Sam worked miracles with her compact camera.
After viewing our photos over lunch (back in the Microbrewery), we made the drive to Monument Valley in time to watch the sunset.
One of the writers for the USA Lonely Planet guidebook offers the opinion that Monument Valley may have the most stunning scenery in America, and they certainly have a valid argument. The buttes and mesas, that are as red as the soil they rise up from, are absolutely stunning.
The first known inhabitants of Monument Valley were the Anasazi Indians, whose ancient Puebloan sites dot the South-western region of the US; some of which still remain unseen by ‘white man‘. The land is now owned
Petroglyph of Hunter and Bison
It'd be great if they'd carved the moon, stars and a flying saucer....that'd have the experts guessing. by the Navajos, who for the record, are no direct relation to the Anasazi, who abandoned the area for reasons unknown in the 1300’s…….we would see more evidence of their era later.
The following day we jumped aboard a 4x4 for a guided tour of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. Our tour lasted for three hours as we made our way over sand and rock, passing huge rust coloured monoliths, many of which have been given names to accompany their thought provoking images.
We also went to visit one of the 300 Navajos that still live in the valley in traditional huts known as Hogans, without running water or electricity, and still weaving rugs in the traditional way. This 80-something female hadn’t escaped the modern world completely though, as she sat there in her oversized aviator sunglasses; Victoria Beckham, I hope you’re satisfied. It may well have been hard for her to escape Hollywood, as so many films have been shot here including:
Stage Coach (and many others starring John Wayne)
The Eiger Sanction (Clint Eastwood)
2001 Space Odyssey
Fort Apache
How the West was Won
National Lampoon’s Summer Vacation
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Thelma and Louise
Told you we'd be setting foot in several states...
As you look at it - My feet are bottom right in New Mexico, bottom left in Arizona. Sam's feet are top right in Colorado, and top left in Utah. Back to the Future III
Billy the Kid……………..etc etc
We drove out of Monument Valley that same afternoon, and the road out took us through a very small town with a great name, which it gets from a rock formation just outside, Mexican Hat. It’s funny what you picture in your mind, but the Mexican Hat is actually upside down as you’ll see in the photograph.
Our next stop would be in Cortez , Colorado, but before that we would make two detours. The first was to the Four Corners Monument (again Navajo owned), and so named because it’s the only place in America where the four corners of four different states meet in one place. The four states are Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, and whilst here it‘s all about the novelty factor of having a part of you in four different states at the same time. Well, sometimes you just have to do the touristy thing. So as the saying goes: when in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona do like the...............nevermind.
Our second detour was to the amazing ruins in Mesa Verde NP in Colorado. This National Park and World Heritage Site houses the
Hidden from those above
The cliff dwellings of the Anasazi in Mesa Verde NP long deserted cliff dwellings of another ancient Anasazi civilisation. It’s absolutely amazing to view the communities that date back to 1300 AD. But to this day, like Monument Valley, they too remain shrouded in mystery, as no-one can explain why the Ancestral Puebloans abandoned this area, suddenly and completely.
After our stay in Cortez, we moved from Colorado back into Utah, and made our first of a two part visit to Canyonlands National Park. This first visit would take us in via the east entrance where we viewed the Petroglyphs on Newspaper Rock and the bizarre ‘Needles’ landscape. Our second visit was spectacularly delayed by two days in Arches National Park, that sits nicely en route, and cannot be ignored.
So we stayed for five nights in Moab, situated perfectly to access Arches and Canyonlands. If you’ve never heard of Arches, it isn’t hard to guess what the main attractions are, as geological processes over thousands of years create (as well as destroy) these natural arches, although we’ll leave the technical stuff to our friend and geologist, Professor Paul, you’ll remember from our storm chasing days. There are, however, many more interesting rock formations other than the arches.
3 Sisters - Monument Valley
Gifts were purchased for 2 of them under their gaze It’s a fantastic place that really has that wow factor again, and to really take in the landscape we hiked the Devil’s Garden Trail on our second day there, choosing to reach Dark Angel (a huge monolith at the end of the trail) via the primitive trail, and to come back using the main trail.
The Primitive Trail is less travelled due to being labelled difficult, so when we found ourselves scrambling up steep inclines on all fours we shouldn’t have been surprised, but we enjoyed the adventure and doing the trail this way meant that we covered all 11.5 km, seeing all the arches as we went. After a few stops for food, water and picture taking, we arrived back at the RV some six hours after we started. Both shattered from the heat and exercise, we thought it only right to stop at the Moab Brewery on the way back for a few well earned beers. With those drinks we’d consumed over five litres of fluid without the need for a bathroom, which is maybe a little too much information, but it gives you an indication of the heat and terrain we'd covered as well as the
perspiration we'd leaked during our hike.
The following day we drove out for more scenic vistas at Dead Horse Point State Park, and our second visit to Canyonlands, this time coming in from the north entrance. The views here are much more spectacular as you look down at hundreds of canyons and the Colorado River. On leaving Canyonlands, we drove back for our third and last visit to Arches, as we’d decided to make the 1.5 mile (mostly uphill) hike to the park’s signature arch. We’d seen Delicate Arch from a lookout point across the valley, but not up close. It’s fitting that this beautiful stand-alone arch is in a high and fairly remote location, and rewards the strenuous leg 'n' lung work. Shortly after our arrival we had the place almost to ourselves, with only five other people sharing it with us. This lasted about 15 minutes, because as the sun sets, up come the ‘need-to-be-under, next-to, and posing-in-front-of-the-arch’ tourists; yes, the Chinese are here. They come for sunset because that’s the done thing. Soon after they arrive we leave; the Arch remains the same but the tranquillity is lost.
We stayed another night in Moab, needing
The Totem Pole
Clint Eastwood stood on top of this formation in 'The Eiger Sanction' to get some jobs done on our last day: laundry, haircut, internet, post office, and we also had to get the two front tyres of our RV replaced, these had been worrying me for many miles and in all honesty should have been replaced before we left Las Vegas.
As the odometer on the RV ticked past 4000 miles, with little under a week left, we now start heading back towards Vegas. We still have a few parks to see, the last of which is rated in the top five of America’s most scenic, and with a name like Zion it should be positively heavenly.
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