After leaving Zion our next stop on our tour of the Colorado Basin is the highly photographed Monument Valley. This image has become the icon of Western America as shown on both our Map and Lonely Planet Guide.
We arrived at the Gouldings Camp Park in the afternoon. The park itself has it's own claim to fame as it was set up to host the movie crews which used the valley as the back drop for many Western films. In tribute to this they still have John Wayne's cabin available to visit and each night they show a film staring him in their small movie theatre. With the only other option to sit in our cold tent we decided to take them up on the offer of a John Wayne movie. The Searchers on the first night and Stage Coach (1939) on the second night.
During the day a sandstorm had passed the tent. Apparently sandstorms are another thing thing the tent wont protect you against.
The next morning we got up at 5.30am to drive through Monument Valley at sunrise. When we got there we found that the road was closed to all except tour buses which were full of people who had paid $76 each to have the opportunity to visit the site at this majestic hour. With no sign of guards stopping us from accessing the road we followed the bus in. Waiving the $20 fee we should have paid.
Once the bus was out of site we had the road to ourselves. Technically trespassing on the native lands I wished I hadn't watched the John Wayne film last night. You half expected a group of Native Americans to ride over on horseback throwing spears at us. Thankfully that was just my imagination. In actual fact what we had done was encourage others to drive into the site without paying as cars began to follow us in.
The morning sun was the best light to capture these amazing rock formations. As we followed the road round the back of the site we were able to catch the same photo that had been stolen for our blog.
Another day. Another great photo opportunity.
