Travel Desination: Monument Valley, Arizona Print

If you’re interested in seeing some of the most beautiful scenery in America, visit Monument Valley. For old Western movie buffs, it is a kind of Valhalla of Hollywood immortals John Wayne and director John Ford. In 1939, Ford brought his film crew and unknown young actor Wayne to the Valley to make "Stagecoach".

Monument Valley

 

Together they created other great movies there, including “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”, “Fort Apache”, “The Searchers” and a dozen more. Other films made in the Valley include “My Darling Clementine”, “Sergeant Rutledge” and “Cheyenne Autumn”.

Monument Valley, one of the greatest scenic wonders of the world, is composed of prehistoric red sandstone rock formations that tower magestically above the Arizona desert, some as high as a thousand feet. The sculpture was carved by huge, fast-flowing rivers over a million years. It’s spread for hundreds  of miles in Arizona, along the Utah border, beginning some 20 miles southwest of Mexican Hat, Utah, 25 miles north of Kayenta, Arizona.

The area is within the Navajo Nation Reservation, which maintains the visitor facilities and provides rides through the area by jeep and tour trucks. For more information, check Monument Valley sites on the internet.