Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, known by the Navajo as Tse’Bii’Ndzisgaii, is said to be one of the most photographed places on earth. The valley is host to towering sandstone rock formations that have been sculpted over time and soar 400 to 1,000 feet above the valley floor. Combined with the surrounding mesas, buttes, and desert environment, it truly is one of the natural wonders of the world. Set aside by the Navajo Tribal Council in 1958, the park covers almost 92,000 acres in northern Arizona and southern Utah and lies within the Navajo Nation reservation.

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Archeologists have identified more than 100 ancient Ancestral Puebloan (also known as Anasazi) sites and ruins dating prior to 1300 A.D.  The valley was abandoned by the Ancestral Puebloans in the 1300’s, as were other areas in the Four Corners region.

Near the center of the Colorado Plateau at almost 5,600 feet in elevation, the area was once a lowland basin.  Over hundreds of millions of years, sediment layers eroded from the Rocky Mountains were deposited.  A slow, gentle uplift elevated the sediment layers to a height of 1 – 3 miles above sea level, making the area into a plateau.  Wind and water erosion over the last 50 million years cut into the surface of the plateau, carving the layers of soft and hard rock into the magnificent mesas, buttes, pinnacles and monolith rock formations of today.

In the mid-1920’s, Harry Goulding and his wife Mike, established a nearby trading post still in operation today.  After the Depression and two major droughts, trading post income was markedly diminished.  Learning that a major Hollywood studio was looking to film a Western on location, Harry, along with a photographer, began to photograph the valley and developed a breathtaking photo album.

In 1938, the Gouldings traveled to the studio in Los Angeles.  Without an appointment, Goulding arrived and stated he would wait until he could be seen.  Soon, director John Ford saw Goulding’s photo album, and it wasn’t long thereafter that Ford began filming the 1939 movie, Stagecoach,  with John Wayne in Monument Valley.  Ford made 7 more films in Monument Valley over 25 years.

Film critic, Keith Phipps, stated that Monument Valley’s “five square miles have defined what decades of moviegoers think of when they imagine the American West.”   Other movies such as Easy Rider, Thelma and Louise, Back to the Future III, and 2001: A Space Odyssey have filmed in Monument Valley.  Most recently, The Lone Ranger filmed in the valley.

Monument Valley

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MORE SCENES
https://myitchytravelfeet.com/scenic-drive-in-monument-valley/
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The name “Anasazi” has come to mean “ancient people,” although the word itself is Navajo, meaning “enemy ancestors.” [The Navajo word is anaasází (anaa- “enemy,” sází “ancestor”).] The term was first applied to ruins of the Mesa Verde by Richard Wetherill, a rancher and trader who, in 1888–1889, was the first Anglo-American to explore the sites in that area. Wetherill knew and worked with Navajos and understood what the word meant. The name was further sanctioned in archaeology when it was adopted by Alfred V. Kidder, the acknowledged dean of Southwestern Archaeology. Kidder felt that it was less cumbersome than a more technical term he might have used. Subsequently some archaeologists who would try to change the term have worried that because the Pueblos speak different languages, there are different words for “ancestor,” and using one might be offensive to people speaking other languages.^[1]

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ancient_Pueblo_Peoples

The Ancient Pueblo Peoples (Anasazi) were one of four major prehistoric archaeological traditions recognized in the American Southwest. The others are the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Patayan. Archaeologists use these cultural units to define material culture similarities and differences identified in prehistoric socio-cultural units. Since the names and divisions are classification devices based on theoretical perspectives, analytical methods, and data available at the time of analysis and publication they are subject to change. Therefore, it should not be assumed that these archaeological divisions or culture units necessarily correspond to a particular language group or to a socio-political entity such as a tribe.

These prehistoric groups were not separated by clear-cut boundaries. Prehistoric people traded, worshiped, collaborated, and fought with other nearby groups. In the Southwest, mountain ranges, rivers and, most obviously, the Grand Canyon were significant barriers for human communities, likely reducing the frequency of contact with other groups.

The Ancient Pueblo Peoples occupied the area known as the “Four Corners,” a region consisting of the southwestern corner of Colorado, northwestern corner of New Mexico, northeastern corner of Arizona, and southeastern corner of Utah. Their homeland centers on the Colorado Plateau, but extends from central New Mexico on the east to southern Nevada on the west. Areas of southern Nevada, Utah and Colorado form a loose northern boundary, while the southern edge is defined by the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers in Arizona and the Rio Puerco and Rio Grande in New Mexico. However, structures and other evidence of Ancient Pueblo culture has been found extending east onto the American Great Plains, in areas near the Cimarron and Pecos rivers and in the Galisteo Basin.

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Monument Valley is like a national park, but it falls within the jurisdiction of the Navajo Nation’s 27,425-square-mile (71,000 square kilometers) territory in the Four Corners region of the United States. Of that 17 million acres, more than 91,000 acres are set aside as Monument Valley Tribal Park — a space larger than Arches National Park.

How did these incredible sandstone towers form? Like Arches and Canyonlands national parks to the north, Monument Valley showcases eons of nature’s erosive power, yet has distinctive formations unlike anywhere else in the world. For millions of years, layers upon layers of sediments settled and cemented in the basin. The basin lifted up and became a plateau; then the natural forces of water and wind slowly removed the softer materials and exposed what we see before us today. The spires, buttes, and other formations are still slowly chipping away but will be around long after we are gone.

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USA Monument Valley Aerial Drone Footage 4K Arizona–Utah Monument Valley (Navaj- meaning valley of the rocks) is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching 1,000 ft (300 m) above the valley floor.It is located on the Arizona–Utah border (around 36°59′N 110°6′W Coordinates: 36°59′N 110°6′W ), near the Four Corners area. The valley lies within the range of the Navajo Nation Reservation and is accessible from U.S. Highway 163. Monument Valley has been featured in many forms of media since the 1930s. Director John Ford used the location for a number of his best-known films and thus, in the words of critic Keith Phipps, “its five square miles [13 square kilometers] have defined what decades of moviegoers think of when they imagine the American West

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Monument Valley Drone Flight

NOT A DRONE – A flight