We recently visited Monument Valley, and it turned out to be one of our best “days on the road”.

The only planning done before our visit occurred when I was piecing together our trip home to New England from Tucson. As I was looking at the map, I asked Wife: “Should we leave a day early and check out Monument Valley? We’ve always wanted to…” She said yes, so I reserved a cabin at the only option within the Navajo Tribal Park, The View Hotel & Campground. I read a few reviews of the place, and that was it for planning.

We left Tucson on a Sunday in early April, knowing it would take the better part of the day to reach Monument Valley. It’s located near “Four Corners”, where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado come together, and actually does span the Arizona and Utah border. It took about 7 hours to make the trip. Tucson, Phoenix, Flagstaff then onto the Navajo Nation lands. A long day on the road.

Once there, we paid the $8 admission fee (each) to the Tribal Park, and then checked into the hotel and received our cabin assignment. The cabin was not inexpensive. The Navajo have monetized the incredible scenery very effectively, and I don’t blame them at all for doing so.

After offloading into the super-clean and relatively new cabin, we headed back up to the main hotel and visitor center for some dinner. There are very few places to eat in the area, and none of them are notable for anything other than middlin’ fare at high prices. Wife had a chicken sandwich while I had a grilled chicken salad. Then it was back to the east-facing cabin, where we planned an early night so we might be up with the sunrise.

We were not disappointed as dawn broke over the desert the next morning.

After watching the day begin, I quickly dressed in the hiking garb and headed for the Wildcat Trail, the only trail you can hike without a guide. It’s roughly a four mile walk down in the valley, circling around West Mitten Butte.

The trailhead was a couple hundred yards south of our cabin. I was dressed for the chilly start to the day, which was somewhere in the mid-30s. It rapidly warmed up as the sun rose in the sky. And while the sun was rising, I was busy taking a lot of photographs. The scenery was stunning.

As trails go, Wildcat was fairly easy. The initial descent to the valley floor was very sandy, and while it wasn’t bad going down, coming back up was a tad of a workout. It was like hiking on dunes at the beach.

Other than that, the trail was wide, smooth and easy to follow. 

I followed the trail loop in a counter-clockwise direction. Once I cleared the halfway point the cabins could be seen off in the distance. I headed back toward them, and arrived at the trailhead a little after 9:30AM. 

After a quick clean up, Wife and I headed back to The View Restaurant for breakfast, which was included in the fee for the cabin. It was pretty much the same thing you’d expect at one of the chain hotels. Not much, but good enough to get the day underway.

Checkout time was 11AM, so once breakfast was done we loaded up the Jeep and turned in the keys to the cabin. But we were far from being done with the visit. There was still the Valley Drive to do- a 15 mile driving excursion across the floor of Monument Valley. 

This road was pretty rough in places, and although there were sedans and even minivans trying to make a go of it, a 4×4 vehicle with some ground clearance is advisable. There were tour vehicles available for folks that needed them.

We took the Jeep down into the valley. The traffic when we started was fairly light, as it was before noon. We took it slow, and stopped at many of the turnouts to gaze at the vistas.

At many of the turnouts there were vendors set up, selling souvenirs and the like. We saw one outfitter as well, offering horseback trips along valley trails. There are also private residences here and there about the valley floor.

As we were heading back up out of the valley, we noticed a marked increase in traffic coming down. Many of the vehicles were having a difficult time navigating the rocky and sandy track, perhaps because they and their drivers made poor decisions? I wondered at the time how much the local wreckers charged to haul the street cars out? I’ll bet it isn’t cheap.

That was our last activity inside the Tribal Park, but not the last point of interest. We were planning to spend this night in Gallup, New Mexico as we began the trek eastwards. To get there, we would traverse much of the rest of the Navajo Nation lands we didn’t already see yesterday, and that trip started on US-163. After about 15 miles or so, we pulled the Jeep off to the side of the road, and turned around for this iconic view.

Sometimes, the best trips are those where you just go.