A Monumental Site

Have you ever seen the John Ford film 'Stagecoach'? Do you remember the huge stone rolling and almost crushing Harrison Ford at the beginning of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'? Have you ever wondered where some of the sequences in those movies were filmed? The answer is Monument Valley which starts in Arizona then straddles and is mostly in Utah. This isn't a national park but instead is owned by the Navajo nation who live around and inside the park. This means that all access to the area is controlled by the Navajo, any travel off road into restricted areas inside the park can only be done with a Navajo guide. Pathways and tracks off the highway around the park have signs saying 'Tourists Keep Out!' There is a 'scenic drive' through the park along an unmade track but only motorists who want to damage their tyres should really attempt it. Camping isn't allowed in the park and the only place to stay close to the park is Goulding's Lodge, a hotel and trading post that was set up in the 1930s by a Mr Goulding who, with John Ford, spent a lot of time inside the Navajo reservation looking at the strange rock structures and giving them names that would better attract tourists from California. So as a convenience to visitors there is the Elephant Rock, the Castle Rock, The Boot Rock and so on which are not the names that the Navajo use.
We stayed in the nearby town of Kayenta which is also on Navajo land so some apparently strange rules applied. No alcohol appeared to be available anywhere. This meant that only expensive non-alcoholic wine or Kaliber non-alcoholic beer was on sale in the hotel which obviously didn't have a bar anyway. The Navajo nation keep to Mountain Standard Time but use Daylight Saving Time in the summer unlike the rest of Arizona - or is it the other way around? - but have the same time as Utah some of the time. This only became obvious when we checked into the hotel after booking a guide to take us around the park for 9.00am the following morning. We discovered that the hotel and the Navajo nation were an hour ahead of what we thought the time was. We never really found out when we should have got the hour back but instead we just put our watches to the rest of Arizona when we left the park, saved an hour and all seemed to be back in sequence when we finally stopped in Flagstaff later the next day.
Our guide, Dan, drove us round Monument Valley in a tribal owned Jeep which had to be the most beaten up and spartan 4x4 in the area. Different guides drive different pool vehicles so as long as the engine works and the Jeep drives OK no one seems to worry about anything else. We weren't the first tourists of the day - a few had gone out soon after daybreak - but apart from a group of Japanese in a truck a few miles ahead we were for all intents the only vehicle in the park yet. Dan took us off road, showed us where water can be found for most of the year even in this arid, harsh environment, told us a little about life on the reservation and took us to meet a Navajo weaver who lives in an isolated canyon well off the beaten track.
"For a couple of dollars she will show you how she weaves", Dan said.
Not wanting to disturb the normal order of life we said that we wanted to meet her so we turned into her canyon, went up to her hogan - a Navajo building of juniper wood and stones covered with a thick coating of adobe to make it weatherproof - knocked on the wooden door but got no reply.
"She's not home", Dan said, "she may have gone to see one of her children early in the morning before the tourists arrive or she may have gone to buy groceries".
"Will she have gone to Basha's", - a chain of stores that we had seen that seemed to have the monopoly in Navajo lands - I asked. We had been into one in Tuba City to buy food for lunch the day previous and had been surprised how expensive a lot of goods were. There were offers on Navajo staples like Spam, mutton and corn husks but other lines were much more expensive than in stores elsewhere.
Dan smiled, "Oh no, she has probably driven up to Cortez (a town some distance away in Utah). We try to go to Wal*Mart if we can".
Dan drove us on up and down small tracks. We stopped at a photo-opportunity overlooking the mesa that was in 'Stagecoach' the John Wayne film of 1936 and which is a popular tourist stop-off. There was a sign saying 'Pictures on a horse $1' but where was the horse.
"Oh he's probably off having breakfast. Its still early for him." Dan said with a smile on his face.
Towards the end of our two and a half hours with Dan we drove back to the car park and places that a few hours earlier we had had to ourselves were now filling with clusters of tourists all taking the ideal Monument Valley picture. Drivers were attempting the self- drive through park route, in ordinary road cars and some even in large motor homes. The Navajo were out selling trinkets to passers-by.

We were so glad that for a couple of hours at least we had virtually had Monument Valley to ourselves.