Arizona - Monument Valley

Monument Valley - or officially Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park - is without doubt one of the most striking examples of the breathtaking beauty of the empty desert in the southwest of the USA. The vast plain serves as a backdrop for the silhouettes of the red rock formations. With its natural beauty it is one of the most majestic and photographed places on earth.

Before human existence, the area was a lowland basin. For hundreds of millions of years, materials that eroded from the Rock Mountains deposited layer upon layer of sediment which cemented a slow and gentle uplift, generated by ceaseless pressure from below the surface. These horizontal strata were quite uniformly elevated one to three miles above sea level and the basin became a plateau.

Millions of years ago there were many more rocks in this area, which consisted of various types of sandstone rock. The softer layers are worn away by the natural forces of wind and water, causing the so-called mesas. These are wide rocks that are flat at the top. The continuous erosion process ensures that even a mesa wears away very slowly. The harder top layer wears less quickly than the softer sides, so a mesa gets narrower and narrower. If the width of rock is eventually smaller than its height, it is no longer a mesa, but a butte. Also the butte slowly wears away, until a spire remains. Even those rock needles will slowly disappear completely.

Most of the park is located in Arizona, the northernmost point belongs to the state of Utah.

Window is one of the most visited stops so the viewpoint can get rather crowded.

Main picture: North Window, between Elephant Butte and Cly Butte, looking towards East Mitten Butte, with Castle Butte, Bear & Rabbit and Stagecoach in the background
PiP1: the famous panorama with the Mitten Buttes and Merrick Butte
PiP2: Merrick Butte, along the Valley Drive
PiP3: classic image of Monument Valley, taken at mile marker 13 along the road from Mexican Hat (US Highway 163)