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Monument Valley Monoliths Pictures
by
O. Ned Eddins

Monument Valley is in the Four Corners area south and east of Hovenweep National Monument. The first known pre-historic Indians to inhabit Monument Valley were the Kayenta Anasazi.

Four Corners Area - Delorme Topo Map

The spectacular Monument Valley monoliths are among the most photographed subjects in the United States. To protect the scenic beauty of Monument Valley, the area was added to the Navajo Reservation in 1884 by an executive order from President Chester Arthur.

Monument Valley - NASA/U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

The Navajo people established Monument Valley as a Navajo Tribal Park in 1958. The Monument Valley Tribal Park is 29,817 acres with an average elevation of 5,564 feet above sea level. The Navajo people manage and protect this national treasure of buttes, mesas, and monoliths.

Sunrise - Yei Bi Chi - The Totem - Monument Valley

John Ford Point - Monument Valley

Monument Valley provided the scenery for many western film classics, including John Ford's Stagecoach, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Searchers, and Cheyenne Autumn to name a few. The final scenes in the movie Windtalkers were filmed on John Ford Point.

The most photographed scenes in Monument Valley involve the Left and Right Mitten.

Wintertime in Monument Valley

Evening Shadows in Monument Valley

Mars and Orion over Monument Valley - Wally Pacholka (astropics.com)

Monument Valley Stump

Monument Valley Monolith

The Hub - Monument Valley

Sunset - Three Sisters - Monument Valley

Howling Coyote - Monument Valley

The best time for Monument Valley pictures is sunrise, sunset, or right after a storm...haze produces spectacular sunrises and sunsets. There are lots of comments on the Mountainsofstone and Thefurtrapper website pictures. One person emailed that he had been to the same areas, but his pictures did not look like mine. I have been through Monument Valley on numerous occasions over more years than I care to think about. Being old fashioned, I prefer pictures of Monument Valley to look like they did in the fifties before west coast smog blanketed the Southwest...check the storm patterns.

I use a three hundred dollar digital camera, and with Photoshop adjust the tonal settings to get rid of the air pollution. Photographic "purists" look down their nose at this...but...an expensive SLR camera at the same pixel rating does not take any better picture than a moderately-priced digital camera, unless the SLR camera's settings are adjusted, or a variety of lens used to accomplish what can be done in Photoshop. What the difference? Sad to say, but we live in a world of smog and "doctored" photographs.

Now, the vast majority of time, Monument Valley haze (smog, smoke) is so bad it is impossible to take a clear picture. This hazy picture of Merrick Butte from Google Images shows a fairly typical summer day in Monument Valley and for that matter in Hovenweep, Bryce, and Zions National Parks as well.

Merrick Butte

Merrick Butte was named for James Merrick. Merrick and Ernest Mitchell were killed in this area of Monument Valley by Indians while prospecting. The Merrick and Mitchell families had settled on McElmo Creek just prior to the settlement of the Bluff Montezuma Creek area by the San Juan Mission of Mormon settlers with the Hole-in-the-Rock Expedition.

The Monument Valley article was written by O. Ned Eddins of Afton, Wyoming. Permission is given for material from this site to be used for school research papers.

Citation: Eddins, Ned. (article name) Mountainsofstone.com. Afton, Wyoming. 2002.