Day 26 -- Monument Valley & The Moki Dugway

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Well, there were just two more things that I really wanted to do before we made the run for home, a drive through Monument Valley and the climb up the crazy Moki Dugway.

Now I've heard some people say that Monument Valley is a waste of time because "There's nothing to do but drive through and look." Maybe so, but driving through and looking is exactly what I had in mind. Anyway, I think I owe it to old John Ford to at least take a look at the location of so many of his movies. In fact, this valley has become an iconic movie landscape with films as diverse as "Stagecoach", "Electroglide in Blue", and even "Forrest Gump" making good use of that classic backdrop.

So we got an early start, looped down south and east, than back north. (I seems only the crows can get anywhere here as the crow flies.) I wanted to get the real "Forrest Gump" shot with the car right in the road, but unlike south Texas, traffic made that impossible. We did get some good pictures anyway.

Then it was north into the slick rock sandstone country of southern Utah. Just great driving, climbing up and over one ridge line after another, down into the San Juan River Valley, than steeply up again toward Cedar Mesa. There is a blank rock wall 1200 ft high up ahead, and we are going to drive up it.

The road up that cliff is called the Moki Dugway, and it was built in 1958 by a mining company to haul out uranium ore. The mine is closed now, but the road remains as one of the most extreme drives in the US.

I wish I had pictures to show you of the drive up, but I'd set the camera up to take video from the empty passengers seat. Unfortunately, the results were a failure, a nice film of the dashboard going up the hill, with the outside very much overexposed. Too bad, but I did get some shots from atop the Mesa. In a way, I guess that was a crowning moment for this trip, as starting tomorrow it will just be a matter of bumbling along the interstates toward home.

This view though, will stay with me for a long time --

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Comments

[jm]

so very bleak
Tom, there was no mention anywhere in this entry of people. This looks like something from the moon, did you see anyone there? Does anyone live there? Is there any water? Where is the nearest town - nearest to what? Has to be one of the most barrren and inhospitable looking places I've seen. Are you sure you're not lost? j.

[vonbondo]

Not many folks living near the Moki Dugway, that's for sure. There is a little settlement maybe 15 miles away -- Mexican Hat, Utah. (again - not making this up) I did see one other vehicle in the hour or so that I was atop the mesa, a BIG 10 wheel water tanker going down -- very glad not to have met him on my way up!