Monument Valley

This is the northernmost of the Monument Valley mesas. It is next to Sitting Hen and is near Brigham's Tomb, putting it within view of Monument Pass.

This dramatic butte is northeast of John Ford's Point; if you go to John Ford's Point and look to your right, it should be the largest butte in that direction.

This butte is north of Sleeping Dragon Butte. The Flying Eagle is west of Yei Bi Chei and the eastern end of Flying Eagle is near a collection of sand dunes and Sand Springs. A canyon cuts into the southwestern part of the butte.

This mesa marks the southern end of Monument Valley. It is in Southern Monument Valley, the extremely remote part of the valley that even the local Navajo people avoid.

This butte is named after a miner in the area who died while mining. He worked with Mitchell, who also got an outcrop named after him.

This butte is named after a miner in the area who died while mining. He worked with Merrick, who also got an outcrop named after him.

Probably the most recognizable feature in Monument Valley and Western films, along with the other Mitten. It is the larger of the two mittens, but is farther away from the park headquarters than the West Mitten.

Probably also the most recognizable feature in Monument Valley and Western films. You can get a fairly close-up view of this mitten from the Wildcat Trail, which goes in a loop around the West Mitten.

North Window overlook is between North Window Butte and Elephant Butte. In case you were wondering, there is no South Window overlook.

This mesa is near the Goulding's Lodge and marks the edge of Monument Valley. If you go to the Goulding's Gas Station and look in the direction of the main lodging area, the large rock face you can see is the side of Rock Door Mesa. Two narrow valleys separate Rock Door Mesa from the other nearby mesas.

This spire is in the remote southeast of Monument Valley, meaning that even the all-day tours do not reach it.

Mesa that can be seen from the Monument Valley Visitor Center; most of the mesa is in Utah, but a small southern section of it is in Arizona. Sentinel Mesa is particularly dramatic because it is such a large mesa in an area of Monument Valley where mesas are few and far between.

It looks like a dragon when viewed from the north and a ghost when viewed in the sky from the west. It is south of Flying Eagle and there are a few traditional Navajo hogans just south of the Sleeping Dragon. Parts of the Sleeping Dragon resemble the toadstools, but the cliffs around it and a large gash in the butte's southern side give its identity and location away.

This large mesa looks like the letter "E" when viewed from the sky. It marks the northeastern boundary of the Eastern Monument Valley rock formations, and all of its three prongs are south of Artist's Point and north of The Cube and Yei Bi Chei Point.

The Stagecoach Spires are a few miles north of where the Stagecoach film was made; they are in the far north of Monument Valley.

This butte is a two-step butte; there is a large butte with a narrow one on top of it.

These three spires are best viewed from the John Ford Point area, where they can be most easily recognized. The smallest of the spires, which is in the center, has a rock that sits on it. The large spire on the southern end looks like a person when viewed from the John Ford Point area.

This spire, next to Camel Butte, has several large rocks lying next to it.

This lone spire is not far from the Yei Bi Chei Spires. If you look at the Yei Bi Chei Spires from the south, the Totem Pole is a lone spire that is a few hundred yards left of the other spires; looming behind the Totem Pole is Spearhead Mesa, while relatively flat terrain is behind Yei Bi Chei Spires.

These spires – which are next to Totem Pole Spire – are organized in a crescent-like shape. "Yei Bi Chei" is a Navajo term that refers to a particular special event that the locals used to do that involved dancing. The Yei Bi Chei spires can, particularly from the south, look like a group of dancers.

The Cube Rock is near the overlook point for Sand Springs in eastern Monument Valley. If you go to Yei Bei Chei point and look northeast, the small (in comparison with the other rocks), square-shaped rock is Cube Rock.

From Artist's Point, you can look north toward the mittens and northern buttes.

This viewing point was featured in several Western films. You can get a picture of yourself at this point – standing on a horse, just like it was in the films. At John Ford Point, there are several buildings, making this one of the more developed parts of the park – it's a just a rough dirt road to get there.

Named after the famous actor John Wayne, this point is near Lookout Point but instead faces east-southeast.

From this viewing point, the mittens and northern buttes can be seen. The views from Lookout Point are the most well-known in Monument Valley.

This overlook views the North Window and the desert expanse beyond it.

This point overlooks the Sand Springs region of the park. The overlook point is near a riverbank. However, the area is also surrounded by rocks, so viewers will be looking up for rock formations at this overlook and not down. At Yei Bi Chei Point, the best views are not directly in front of you, where the country is more or less flat; for the best views, drive to the point and look behind you (west).

Although there are many Ancestral Puebloan ruins in Monument Valley, these ruins in the south of the park are probably the ones that are largest and most intact. They are, like Ancestral Puebloan ruins in general, lodged built into a wide but shallow cave in the side of a rounded rock. Guided tours sometimes allow the tourists to climb the rock face and go inside the cave itself, where you can see how cooking done hundreds of years ago still leaves its mark on the cave ceiling. Tourists need to remember, though, that the Ancestral Puebloan ruins are considered by the Navajo people to be sacred; and tourists also must not take any artifacts from the area surrounding the cave. (Because the Navajo people consider the ruins to be sacred, they do not allow historians to examine any artifacts from the Valley; this means that remnants of pottery can still be seen on the ground where they were left by the Ancestral Puebloans hundreds of years ago.)

This is another Ancestral Puebloan Ruin of importance in Monument Valley, but this one is slightly different from the others because it is on the ground. The ruin is on the edge of a narrow canyon that has high rocks on both sides. However, these ruin is fenced off and the fence was moved farther out from the ruin in 2018 to better protect it and the petroglyphs. The petroglyphs, like many petroglyphs in the Colorado plateau, either depicted extinct animals or were the product of a vivid imagination. Hands in the petroglyphs are small and imply that the Ancestral Puebloan people who lived at Monument Valley were unusually short.

There is a spring near a sand dune in this part of Monument Valley.

Gouldings does several tours of the valley, including an eight-hour "all-day" tour which goes to many remote regions of Monument Valley.

Offers one-day and overnight hiking, rafting, backpacking, and adventure tours to Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon, Northern Arizona, and Southern Utah. Pickups in Phoenix, Las Vegas, and the Grand Canyon area.

Majestic Monument Valley Touring Co. is a certified tour company owned and operated by Navajo. They offer a variety of tours inside and outside of the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. With their Navajo guides, customers learn about Navajo culture as they experience the beautiful landscape. They operate year-round.

A Navajo-owned tour company that offers many different cultural tours of Monument Valley.

Sandstone Tours offers sunset and sunrise tours of Monument Valley and Mystery Valley as well as a variety of other affordable tours ranging from 1½ to 6 hours. Tour the valley with a local Navajo guide and enjoy several scenic stops along the way.