Quiet on the set
Monument Valley, Utah — I thought I knew Monument Valley. I’d seen the westerns John Ford shot here, as well as the Isuzu car commercials. I’d read the books and devoured the documentaries. I knew that John Wayne had referred to this remote region of Navajo country as the place “where God put the West.”
So what would be the purpose of actually coming here?
More than that, I worried that the experience might be anticlimactic. What if, like many major stars, it was less impressive in person than on the big screen, a landscape that looked empty and bereft without Hollywood’s effortlessly mythologized cavalry riding purposefully across it?
What if I felt like the men in Rita Hayworth’s life, who, as the actress famously said in reference to her most celebrated role, “fall in love with Gilda and wake up with me”?
What if, God forbid, I wished I’d stayed home?
The man behind my dilemma was, of course, Ford. He shot only seven movies here, but the shadow they cast is long and persuasive.
In fact, the argument could be made that, from 1939’s “Stagecoach” through “Cheyenne Autumn” in 1964, those magnificent seven (which include “My Darling Clementine,” “Fort Apache,” “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” “The Searchers” and “Sergeant Rutledge”) created the 20th century’s image of the heroic, romantic West, showing us what it ought to look like, though it so rarely does.
To see Ford’s Monument Valley westerns is to see scenery -- what one guide vividly describes as “great mesas, buttes, sandstone pinnacles, spires, fins and arches, all monuments to 500 million years of giant earth uplifts and the perpetual forces of erosion” -- not merely photographed but raised to the level of religious iconography.
Not only are these cinematic landscapes magical in and of themselves, but they also simultaneously dwarf and exalt the men who occupy them. They raise the actors who inhabit this space -- John Wayne being the most notable -- to heroic status simply for being as casually at home in this matchless terrain as the Greek gods were on Mt. Olympus.
Go to Monument Valley? Hadn’t I already been here?
No, as it turned out, I had not.
Monument Valley in person surprised me not once but two times over. Like the canals of Venice or the Zen garden at Ryoan-ji temple in Kyoto, it is a place that insists on being seen in the round to truly be appreciated, the one Hollywood star that is unmistakably bigger than life.
Influenced by a big-screen look at the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s gorgeously restored color print of “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” my wife, Patty, and I decided that the time had come to visit this celebrated locale in person. I soon remembered one reason I had stayed away so long. Whether you fly into Phoenix or Albuquerque, Monument Valley remains a six-hour drive. With distances like that, I muttered to myself as we rented a car in Phoenix, this valley had better be monumental.
Those distances define one of the paradoxes of Monument Valley. Despite its pedigree and its knockout beauty, it gets relatively few tourists: 500,000 a year compared with the estimated 5 million for nearby Grand Canyon. And most of those who do come are from overseas. Top honors go to German tourists, followed in numerical order by the French, Japanese and Italians before Americans appear on the visitor list.
In a way, though, that long drive from Phoenix was a blessing in disguise. The way the city peeled away and the landscape slowly changed from saguaro cactuses to pines to sparsely inhabited desert was an opportunity for gradual immersion in the deep, trackless West and a preparation for what was to come.
Once we passed through Kayenta, Ariz., and the only-in-America Burger King that doubles as a museum dedicated to the celebrated Navajo code talkers of World War II, we turned off on U.S. 163. Almost immediately, there was a glimpse of El Capitan, a tall, otherworldly volcanic formation. I had the unshakable feeling that our six-hour drive had somehow deposited us on another planet.
If you want to get a hotel room in Monument Valley itself, there is only one place to stay: Goulding’s Lodge, a low-slung, 62-room establishment nestled comfortably at the foot of the massive Big Rock Door Mesa, just across the state line in Utah. Even if there were other places to choose from, Goulding’s would be the destination of choice. It is the Vatican City of western films, the place where memory resides, an establishment whose story is inextricably linked with the valley’s relationship with the movie business.
Harry Goulding and his wife, Leone, arrived in the valley in 1923. The land then belonged to the Paiutes, not the Navajo, and when it became available for homesteading in 1928, the Gouldings, who initially lived in a tent, bought 640 acres for $320 and built a small trading post with living quarters on the second floor.
What happened next, like many Hollywood tales, has several versions.
The official one, which might even be true, has Goulding, hurt by the Depression and hearing that John Ford was looking to shoot a western on location, going to Los Angeles. Armed with a book of professionally shot photographs, he was determined to get Ford to work in the valley, which had previously been the site of a 1925 silent called “The Vanishing American.”
Goulding may or may not have laid out his bedroll in the production offices and threatened to wait as long as necessary for a meeting, but Ford was persuaded to shoot “Stagecoach” here. He considered it “the most beautiful place on Earth” and visited the valley so often that he eventually acquired the Navajo name of Natani Nez (Tall Leader), and as a major enemy of studio interference, he was especially partial to the fact that no spot in the United States was farther from a railroad than this locale.
The cinematic West
THOUGH the Ford cast and crew members who stayed here and the Gouldings are long gone (brothers Gerald and Roland LaFont, own the establishment now), the lodge and each room, complete with small balcony and orange plastic chairs to complement the red sandstone mesa, continue to offer the spectacular views that attracted Hollywood years ago and still inspire the kind of ecstatic, died-and-gone-to-heaven experience Ford himself must have had when he set eyes on this scenery.
In 1954, Time magazine called Goulding’s, when it had only eight rooms to its name, “one of the eight most luxurious hotels in the world.” The lodge is bigger now; in fact, it’s an entire mini-city warmly dedicated to the worship of the cinematic West. The front desk rents John Ford DVDs; a small theater shows one of them every night. The bookstore offers a range of wares: Pendleton blankets, Tony Hillerman novels, even a Navajo dictionary with a CD pronunciation guide. The Stagecoach restaurant serves “hearty meals just like the Duke loved,” including various cuts of steak and ample portions of Navajo fry bread.
The highlight of a visit to Goulding’s is the original trading post, which looks just like it did when it appeared in “Fort Apache” in 1948. Now a museum, it features memorabilia, the swinging saloon doors from “My Darling Clementine” as well as pages from Goulding’s celebrated guestbook, in which John Wayne poignantly wrote in 1945, “Harry, you and I both owe these monuments a lot.”
As fascinating as Goulding’s and the museum are, they are finally not enough, and as tired as we were from driving, we got back in the car and drove the couple of miles across the state line from Utah to Arizona to the visitors center of the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.
The visitors center (which charges a $5-per-vehicle entrance fee) includes a museum of Navajo accomplishments, a large and well-stocked souvenir store with a fine selection of Navajo jewelry and rugs, and the View, a small restaurant that couldn’t be more appropriately named.
The buttes and mesas of the valley, as imposing as visitors from another galaxy yet delicate and romantic, are always ready for their close-up. In fact, one of the surprises of Monument Valley is that appreciation or even knowledge of Ford’s westerns isn’t necessary to fall in love with being here. The reality is so thrilling that the films almost fly out of your head, leaving you with a feeling of pure elation. If ever a place cast a spell, rooted you to the ground and refused to let you leave, this is it.
Landmarks’ eclectic names
A bumpy and dusty 17-mile dirt road goes down from the heights of the visitors center and winds through the valley. Seeing the monuments from ground level dwarfs you in the most pleasant way; a kind of dignity attaches to these massive stones that makes our pedestrian scurrying around feel puny at best. Being among them elicits a quasi-religious, almost sacred feeling that hasn’t always been Hollywood’s intention.
Because not everyone wants to expose their cars to the rigors of that dirt road, several companies offer tours of the valley. Since we were already staying at Goulding’s, we booked one of the half-day tours. Twenty people filled up what looked like a converted school bus placed on the bed of a pickup truck and headed out to get a closer look at Mitchell, Merrick, the Mittens, Grey Whiskers, King on His Throne, John Wayne’s Boot and the other eclectically named monuments.
Because the valley is on reservation land, all tours are guided by Navajos. Tour buses are the only vehicles allowed to go off the 17-mile drive and explore the valley’s back country, stopping at natural arches and ancient Anasazi petroglyphs and offering glimpses, including an incongruous basketball hoop, of places where people make their homes.
All tours stop at John Ford Point, the director’s favorite camera location, the place where numerous cavalry charges and Indian attacks were committed to film.
It’s difficult not to wonder what the Navajo guides feel about all this: about the fact that what draws people from all over the world to this beautiful spot are the movies that, though they provided much-needed employment to tribal members, always cast the Indians in the losing role. The next day, we decided to see the area from another angle -- riding in a Jeep Wrangler. This customized tour cost $185, but it offered an opportunity to go places we couldn’t otherwise reach and see the area from another point of view.
We cast our lot with Sacred Monument Tours. When we told our guide David Lee Clark (“a good Indian name,” he joked) what we had already seen, he suggested a drive around Mystery Valley, an area just south of Monument Valley that is not open to tour buses. It was a revelation, a completely different world just next door.
Clark was a thoughtful, laconic man with a dry sense of humor and a store of information about the history of the area and the properties of its plants. He piloted the four-wheel-drive vehicle over roads that were either barely there or completely nonexistent. We drove to rock formations that looked uncannily like flying saucers and to Mystery Valley’s most celebrated attraction, its numerous Anasazi ruins.
The most remarkable thing about Mystery Valley, after spending time amid the motorized bustle of Monument Valley, was a silence so complete you felt you were listening to the sound of eternity as you looked at the ruins.
To be there alone is to go back in time and enter a kind of parallel universe, just as beautiful as the one the films made famous but more reserved, respectful and remote. If the Anasazi themselves had suddenly materialized out of the past, it would not have been a surprise.
We drove back to Monument Valley across a seemingly trackless landscape in the growing twilight, the sun setting gorgeously behind the buttes.
“When I was growing up, the sun came up, the sun went down, I never noticed,” Clark said, speaking about the valley. A group of horses materialized like magic near us and then disappeared. “When I started doing tours, I started noticing.”
I knew just what he meant.
Kenneth Turan is a Times film critic. kenneth.turan@latimes.com
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Critic’s choice:
Stagecoach 1939
This was not the first film to feature Monument Valley or John Wayne, but it’s the one that turned both into stars. John Carradine, Thomas Mitchell and Claire Trevor memorably costar.
My Darling Clementine 1946
The real O.K. Corral never had a backdrop like this, but Henry Fonda’s Wyatt Earp and Victor Mature’s Doc Holliday didn’t seem to mind. And neither did Linda Darnell as the inevitable romantic interest.
Fort Apache 1948
This black-and-white epic is famous for its pioneering use of infrared film, which required special makeup for the actors but made the sky scape really pop. Henry Fonda and Shirley Temple costarred with Wayne.
She Wore a Yellow
Ribbon 1949
Ford turned to color for this installment of his cavalry trilogy, and a breathtaking thunderstorm helped win an Oscar for cinematographer Winton C. Hoch.
The Searchers 1956
Of all his films, this was Wayne’s personal favorite; in 2002, it was listed among the dozen best films ever made in a Sight & Sound critics poll.
-- Kenneth Turan
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Planning this trip
THE BEST WAY
From LAX, fly nonstop to Phoenix on United, America West or Southwest and drive about 300 miles to Monument Valley on U.S. 160 and 163. Restricted round-trip airfares start at $118.
WHERE TO STAY:
Goulding’s Lodge, 1000 Main St., Monument Valley, Utah, (435) 727-3231; www.gouldings.com. Doubles range from $73 to $175.
Valley of the Gods B&B;, Valley of the Gods Road, Mexican Hat, Utah; (970) 749-1164, www.valleyofthegods.cjb.net. Stone house with 75-foot porch and exquisite views. A double, with full breakfast, is $135.
Desert Rose Inn, 701 W. Highway 191, Bluff, Utah; (435) 672-2303, www.desertroseinn.com. Doubles from $69 to $109.
WHERE TO EAT:
Cow Canyon Restaurant, 163 Mission Road, Bluff, Utah; (435) 672-2208. Open April 1 to Nov. 1. Entrees, $12 to $18.
Twin Rocks Cafe, 913 E. Navajo Twins Drive, Bluff, Utah; (435) 672-2341, www.twinrockscafe.com/. Dinner entrees from $8 to $17.
TO LEARN MORE
Navajo Parks and Recreation Department, Building 36A, East Highway 264 at Route 12, Window Rock, Ariz. 86515; (928) 871-6647, www.navajonationparks.org.
-- GREGORY MCNAMEE
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Making the scene
Picture yourself on the Arizona-Utah border among the stunning red mesas and buttes that define Monument Valley. But beware: Getting there is not as easy as it looks.
HIKING AND BIKING
The Navajo Nation restricts access to tribal lands. Visitors who want to venture beyond visitor centers, national parks and monuments must hire a Navajo guide to lead them.
SACRED
MONUMENT TOURS
The route: This Navajo-owned company based in Monument Valley offers four tours, from a fairly easy three-hour trail leading to an Anasazi ruin that overlooks the eastern valley to a four-hour trek to Hunt’s Mesa that guides describe as difficult to extreme. $56.65 to $164.80 per person.
Contact: (435) 727-3218, www.monumentvalley.net
BLACK’S
HIKING TOURS
The route: This company leads hikes to the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Hunt’s and Douglas mesas and more. Rates vary; make reservations at least a week in advance.
Contact: (928) 309-8834, www.blacksmonumentvalleytours.com.
BICYCLING
The route: Bicycling is permitted on the 17-mile loop road into the park, but travelers share the dusty
dirt track with motor vehicles. The same holds true for U.S. 163, the paved highway that leads through Monument Valley. In theory, off-road biking is permitted with a guide, but this aspect of recreational tourism has yet to develop. Bottom line: Mountain-bike enthusiasts should head up to the slick-rock country of Moab, Utah, and environs. Also, rock climbing is strictly forbidden within Monument Valley.
JEEP TOURS AND HORSEBACK RIDES
For the adventure-minded, several Navajo companies offer Jeep and open-air truck tours and horseback trips. An average vehicle ride lasts three hours and costs $10 to $20 an hour per person.
GOULDING’S LODGE
Starting point:
(435) 727-3231, www.gouldings.com
The ride: Half- or full-day tours of the monuments along the loop road inside the tribal park as well as of rock arches within the restricted area. Full-day tour adds Mystery Valley. Cost ranges from $45 to $80 per person.
SIMPSON’S TRAILHANDLER TOURS
Starting point:
(435) 727-3362, www.trailhandlertours.com
The ride: Simpson’s offers several fixed-route tours that last from 90 minutes to a full day, some including Monument and Mystery valleys. $35 to $50 per person.
SACRED MONUMENT TOURS
Starting point:
(435) 727-3218), www.monumentvalley.net
The ride: This company operates vehicle and horseback tours. $50 per person. A two-hour ride taking in Teardrop Arch runs about $70. An all-day ride tops out at $290.
TRADING POSTS
There are more than two dozen trading posts, large and small, in the vicinity, along with smaller and roadside stands. Most towns on the reservation also boast their own galleries.
TWIN ROCKS TRADING POST
The stop: 913 E. Navajo Twins Drive, Bluff, Utah; (435) 672-2341, www.twinrocks.com
The deal: The shop, above, has a broad selection of Navajo arts and crafts, jewelry and kachina carvings.
HUBBELL
TRADING POST
The stop: Arizona 264, Ganado, Ariz.; (928) 755-3475, www.nps.gov/hutr
The deal: It specializes in silverwork, beadwork and textiles, especially the famed Ganado Red weavings.
-- Gregory McNamee
