The next stop on our road trip wasn’t a national park, but a Navajo Tribal Park – Monument Valley. I don’t remember when I first heard about this park. It’s the backdrop of numerous Western films including John Ford’s Stagecoach and the Searchers, but I didn’t grow up watching Westerns.
People visiting the park typically stop long enough to snap some photos or venture out on the scenic drive. Depending on who you listen to, the drive is anywhere from 14 to 17 miles on an unpaved dirt road. We read reviews about Mustangs driving the route at a speed of 5 miles/hour, but decided we didn’t want to take our Mini Cooper on it loaded down with our road trip supplies.
Instead, we contacted Navajo Spirit Tours. Their website offers guided back country tours at sunrise, 9am, 1pm, and sunset. We reached out to see if we could start a tour in late afternoon and if it could include the scenic drive. They were incredibly accommodating – we even requested an enclosed vehicle as protection from the sun, sand, and heat.
We met our guide, Sean, at the Visitor Center and started what ended up being a private, 4-hour tour through Navajo land. Our fist stop was the panoramic view of the Mitten Buttes (pictured below) and Merrick Butte.
It didn’t take long to figure out that we’d be having a great time with Sean. All of the tours are run by Diné (Navajo) guides and Sean had been doing it on and off for the last decade, making him close to us in age. We chatted about the qualities of proper fry bread (the Anishinaabe make it much doughier, whereas the Diné’s is flatter and crispier) and I got to try some a few stops later.
He told us about the history of the Western films and why the stops in the park aren’t listed with their Diné names. At first I tried to make notes on my phone of everything he was telling us, and then I decided to just sit back and enjoy the experience. I made sure to get a photo of all three buttes and then we were off to the next stop.
We talked about the Long Walk of the Navajo, which started in the winter of 1864 when the US government forced thousands of Diné people to walk 300 miles from their homelands to Bosque Redondo. The journey was brutal and there was no light at the end, with a lack of food, water, and clothing. The land was unsuitable for farming and the water was contaminated and after a mounting death toll, the Diné were able to negotiate a treaty that would allow them to return to a portion of their homeland, which is now the Navajo Nation.
Interspersed with the tribe’s history, we also got the history of Monument Valley and the following picture is of John Ford Point. Every time the Diné let someone film or use the land, there was always an exchange of goods or services. For example, when Mission Impossible 2 filmed a scene atop one of the buttes in the valley, the production team was required to clean up the butte by removing all the old rock climbing bolts, clips, and other equipment that had been used on it over the years.
This part of the valley was also used extensively in advertisements for Marlboro cigarettes in the 1950s. Sean joked that he’s not sure if the tribe would have allowed it had they understood how dangerous cigarettes are or if they would have offered the use for free if they thought it would only affect colonizers.
Sean also drove us out to some arches in the park like Moccasin Arch and Sun’s Eye. He told us that when he started offering tours, the company told him that he was expected to either sing or play the flute and he immediately learned the flute to avoid forcing anyone to hear his voice.
The Navajo flute has a distinctive sound, almost haunting, as it echoed off the canyon walls.
We got out of the vehicle frequently to see something new or to stretch our legs, but there wasn’t any hiking involved and we soon got into the flow of the tour. Hop out, chat, hop back in. The entire time we were doing this I was navigating what to do with a giant piece of fry bread in my hand.
We picked it up at John Ford Point and I had eaten as much as I could (delicious), but it was easily 2-3 times larger than the fry bread I’m used to so I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. Some of the early stops had trash bins, but by the time I was finished with my fry bread, there were none to be seen, so I just kept hopping in and out of the truck with it!
On the back half of our stops we switched from landscapes and vistas to ancient carvings on the rock walls. Sean would point them out and tell the stories behind them. The oldest we saw was of a difficult childbirth that had been carved around 1600 BC, but my favorite was the one below (1300 BC).
The story we were told had to do with thankfulness after a successful antelope hunt and the need to leave behind more animals than you take so they can repopulate. I loved the baby antelope underneath its mom.
Four hours was long for tour, but we absolutely enjoyed ourselves. Sean gave us some tips about where to eat dinner, but we decided to book it to Page, Arizona where we’d be spending the night. The next day we’d be visiting Antelope Canyon, one of my most anticipated stops on the trip and I couldn’t wait.
Abroad With Ashley 