Cecille's Creativity

Monument Valley is an area of sandstone rock formations rising majestically up to 300 m form the desert floor, providing one of the most enduring images of the American West. These isolated red mesas and buttes, surrounded by cast, empty desert, have been filmed and photographed countless times, giving the visitor a sense of familiarity, but once in the valley you cannot fail to be amazed at the true vivid, deep, rich colour palette of this otherworldly landscape.

Lying entirely within the Navajo Indian Reservation near the south-eastern corner of Utah, the most famous landmarks are concentrated around the small town of Goulding. This isolated settlement, 250 meters from the nearest city - Flagstaff, Arizona - was established in 1923 as an Indian trading post, and is now home to a comprehensive range of visitor services.

The view from the visitor centre is spectacular enough, nut the majority of the park can only be seen from the Valley Drive, a 27-km road. Winding among the magical towering cliffs and mesas including The Totem Pole, a stunning 91-m rock spire only a few metres wide. As well as eroded rocks, this area is also home to a series of ancient cave and cliff dwellings, natural arches and petroglyphs.

Not a valley in the conventional sense, Monument Valley is actually a wide flat, desolate landscape, interrupted by the crumbling formations, the final remnants of the sandstone layers that once covered the entire region. Monument Valley is the quintessential spectucular, breathtaking Wild West.