The gods walk here

Sunset, Nov, 1998 by Matthew Jaffe

From the floor of Monument Valley, here on the border of Arizona and Utah, it's about a 1,000-foot climb to the flat summit of Hunts Mesa. That figure tells only part of the story.

It is said that the gods use the valley's mesa tops as steppingstones when they walk the Earth. I'm not sure the Navajo have a word comparable to hubris or chutzpah. But looking up at Hunts Mesa, with its red sandstone walls rising into the deep blue desert sky, I'm convinced we're pushing our luck, by any name.

Still, the opportunity to get a god's-eye view from atop rather than below one of Monument Valley's landmark formations seems too good to pass up. And so we set out in my photographer friend Tom's vintage Chevy Blazer, bouncing along the rhythm of the rutted road, trailing our Navajo guides. They're driving one of Monument Valley's traditional tourist vehicles: a pickup truck with rows of bench car seats mounted on the open bed. The word contraption will do.

As we venture into the backcountry, the guides seem intent on testing Tom's driving chops by taking routes through deep sand. We manage to reach the base of the mesa without getting stuck. We get out of our trucks. Our guides, David, Emmett, and Leonard, look up at the mesa's steep, sandstone face. They speak in Navajo, gesturing at possible routes. I follow their hands and struggle to identify the subtleties that distinguish the agreed-upon path from the remainder of the slickrock.

The initial ascent is simple: straight up a gradual, grooved slope. We begin to zigzag, tightroping along barely discernible ledges no wider than a boot, then climb hand-over-hand, dependent on foot- and handholds pecked into the rock 50 or 60 years ago.

In this fashion, we gain 400 feet before reaching a plateau. From here it's easy. The trail ascends furrowed sandstone and ankle-deep sand to lead us to the mesa top. As I hike, I resist the temptation to look back, saving my first glance for the summit.

I have seen Monument Valley hundreds of times. In John Ford's classic westerns, movies like Stagecoach and She Wore a Yellow, Ribbon, which turned these sandstone monoliths into iconic expressions of a mythic American West. In car ads and Road Runner cartoons.

But as I turn and look out, I see Monument Valley, perhaps for the first time. And somehow Monument Valley doesn't look like Monument Valley.

We stand, after all, above the monoliths. From this vantage point they seem smaller, less brooding, almost delicate and vulnerable: survivors, not victors. When you are on the valley floor, it swallows everything to become a world unto itself: up on top, we see Monument Valley as part of a larger realm, the Colorado Plateau.

Our view takes in a vast area of the Four Corners region, including landmarks like jagged Comb Ridge; according to Navajo lore, it is one of four arrowheads used to carve the Earth and today helps protect Navajo land. Seventy miles to the north are the twin 9,000-foot buttes known as the Bear's Ears - huge and imposing when we drove between them the day before, now faint silhouettes breaking the horizon.

Not that I really need any confirmation, but our Navajo guides provide some clues that this is not just any view. They too have brought cameras. With the valley in the background, they snap photos like any other tourist group.

"People always say they want to do a hike, but most of them turn around when they see what they have to climb," says David. "I've worked as a guide for 15 years. This is my second time up here."

One of the essentials to truly experiencing Monument Valley is to get over the notion that you know it. In some ways, the valley is so familiar as to be almost invisible. You can look at Monument Valley and see through it, straight back to your preconceptions.

The name itself suggests something dead, a misnomer on several counts. For one thing, the concept of monuments is foreign to the Navajo. They refer to the area as Tse' Bii' Ndzisgaii, or "changing of the rock."

That name is appropriate, because Monument Valley is still a living place. The sandstone formations - delicate spindly towers like the Yei Bi Chei dancers and stout buttes like Wetherill Mesa - are the 25-million-year-old remnants of hardened sediments deposited by ancient seas that covered most of the Southwest. Wind and rain, as well as temperature-driven contractions and expansions, conspired to wear away softer material. All that sand we battled on our way to Hunts Mesa is the residue of the massive mesas that once rose here.

This geologic evolution is by no means over. Come back in another million years or so and the buttes and towers will be gone. "There is no contract, no completion date," says retired geologist and onetime Monument Valley guide Gene Foushee. "It is ongoing."

Past the pressboard souvenir shacks near the highway and the even more ramshackle kiosks where tour operators try to entice customers, we meet Foushee at the tribal park visitor center. He had told us to look for a tall skinny guy of about 70 wearing a plaid shirt. We find him easily, although he is sporting a bright orange hooded sweatshirt to ward off the day's unexpected chill He still carries the accent of his native North Carolina and greets us with a voice as sweet as a country preacher's.