Monument Valley (8 images)

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  • The Navajo call Monument Valley Tsé Bii' Ndzisgaii, which means the Valley of the Rocks. Nowhere in the Tribal Park does that name embody the landscape than at the Totem Pole and Yei Bi Chei formations in the southern part of the park. ..But, the valley is not just full of rocks, it is also full of sand that used to be the rest of the rocks that have since weathered away. Below the Totem Pole and Yei Bi Chei a field of sand dunes rearranges itself almost daily as the winds constantly blow across this open landscape.

  • Through distant clouds on the eastern horizon, the sun rises slowly over Monument Valley Tribal Park shinning through a thin gauze tinted orange by dust suspended in the early spring air; it eventually peaks out from behind the West Mitten between the thumb and forefinger.

  • Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park is not just a stunning park of geological wonder on the Navajo Nation, it is also home to a community of the Navajo People. scattered throughout the park are homes and ranches and hogans, all featuring scenic views in all directions.

  • The Navajo call Monument Valley Tsé Bii' Ndzisgaii, which means the Valley of the Rocks. Nowhere in the Tribal Park does that name embody the landscape than at the Totem Pole and Yei Bi Chei formations in the southern part of the park...As the sun rises through high, thin clouds, it becomes an amorphous blob on the horizon.

  • In 1939, with the release of Stagecoach, John Ford and John Wayne introduced moviegoers worldwide to what has become an iconic landscape of the American West: Monument Valley. Located in the upper eastern corner of Arizona, this landscape has represented the American Southwest as a whole in many classic Westerns including My Darling Clementine, The Searchers, How The West Was Won, The Legend of the Lone Ranger, and Fort Apache. It has even been used as the setting of an alien planet. But, in the 1930s, it was almost an unknown landscape to the rest of the country, let alone the world, before Director John Ford pointed his 35mm film cameras loaded with black and white film stock at the landscape.

  • Monument Valley, known for its solitary buttes and spires dotting the landscape, is more than its monuments. Surrounding these monuments are larger mesas not yet as eroded, and these mesas feature a large number of pothole arches, which refers to how the arch was formed. Pothole arches are formed when a pothole in a sandstone layer slowly deepens and eventually breaks through to an exposed cliff face or alcove...Big Hogan Arch, eroded into a large hogan-shaped alcove on the southern face of a mesa, forms the faceless head of a sand painting like ghost that appears to be dancing in the hogan. The natural glow of reflected morning sunlight fills the alcove with a fire-like glow.

  • Monument Valley, known for its solitary buttes and spires dotting the landscape, is more than its monuments. Surrounding these monuments are larger mesas not yet as eroded, and these mesas feature a large number of pothole arches, which refers to how the arch was formed. Pothole arches are formed when a pothole in a sandstone layer slowly deepens and eventually breaks through to an exposed cliff face or alcove. Big Hogan Arch, eroded into a large hogan-shaped alcove on the southern face of a mesa, forms the faceless head of a sand painting like ghost that appears to be dancing in the hogan. The natural glow of reflected morning sunlight fills the alcove with a fire-like glow.

  • Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis) crossed into North America from Siberia, long before humans found their way to the western hemisphere during the last ice age, and populated much of the mountainous western half of the continent from the Canada to Baja California. Once numbering in the millions, the bighorn sheep were much diminished by the 20th century when their numbers dwindled into the thousands...But for the humans that lived on the Colorado Plateau and throughout the desert southwest, the Bighorn Sheep were numerous and likely an important food source as their near ubiquitous appearance in the rock art of the Anasazi, Fremont, and other pre-Columbia Native Americans shows. This panel depicting two Bighorn Sheep is found below Sun's Eye Arch in Monument Valley Tribal Park.

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