Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 10, 1993 TAG: 9301100154
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STAN GROSSFELD KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: MONUMENT VALLEY, ARIZ. LENGTH: Long
MONUMENT VALLEY IS A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE WITH HISTORY
The red-rock monuments looked like sliced London broil.An eagle circled endlessly without moving its wings. Wild horses meandered in the warm sun. An Indian guide munched on pinon nuts picked right off branches. There was peace in the valley.
Monument Valley, located near the Four Corners (where Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico come together), is spiritual and uplifting like few places on Earth. The monuments of stone rose millions of years ago and were then eroded by wind and water. Monument Valley is a miniature Grand Canyon without haze, a land rich in history where you can gaze at petroglyphs chiseled into the rock before AD 1300.
If you get the feeling you've been here before, in a way you probably have been. Ever since John Wayne saddled up here in "Stagecoach " (1938), Hollywood has exploited the beauty of Monument Valley. "My Darling Clementine" (1946), "The Searchers" (1956), "How The West Was Won" (1962), "The Trial of Billy Jack" (1973), "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" (1980) and "Back To The Future 3" (1988) all were filmed here.
Even now, near the Navajo Valley Tribal Park visitors center, a yellow Caterpillar tractor stabbed at the earth, widening the dirt road for the filming of Arnold Schwarzenegger's next epic. Hasta la vista, landscape.
After paying a $2.50 per head entrance fee to the park and being given a map, you can drive along a self-guided 17-mile tour. Or you can splurge and hire a personal guide for $10 an hour and enter areas only open to Navajos.
The guide's ears picked up the drone of the 75 Austrian motorcyclists long before they came around a dusty curve. Without hesitating, he took aim and fired at them, his fingers pointed like an imaginary gun. "On the one hand, I really wish these people would stay off my land. But on the other hand, without the tourism we don't eat."
The Indian turned off the main dirt road to another, rougher road marked, "No trespassing, Navajo Nation." Two hundred families live in the vast valley, some in huts called hogans with thick mud walls to insulate in summer and retain warmth in winter. There are hawks, foxes, chipmunks and arches the size of skyscrapers. Monument Valley is one of the few places on earth - Jerusalem is another - where you can just feel the spiritual history and the pain.
In 1864 during the westward expansion, the Army, led by Col. Kit Carson, rounded up 8,000 Navajo and Apache and forced them hundreds of miles from their homes in what became known as "The Long Walk." Thousands died from tuberculosis, pneumonia and dysentery. A few Navajo escaped by hiding among the rocks and helped re-establish their homeland after the 1868 treaty.
Later, a few miners tried to encroach on the land. They were warned, but when they failed to take heed, they were killed. The Butch Cassidy gang often passed through Monument Valley unhurt because it respected the Navajos' privacy.
This has been a stressful year for the Navajo. First there was the hoopla made over the Columbus quincentennial. Then Navajo Nation President Zah called upon Navajos to change their name to Dineh (pronounced Din-AY), which means "The People."
In a controversial stand, Zah has said the word Navajo came from Spanish settlers more than 350 years ago and means "thief," while the name Dineh was given by the Great Spirit.
"Dineh is what we call ourselves," said the guide. "But name changing isn't going to help unemployment, housing, drug and alcohol problems."
He stopped the four-wheel drive. "See that beer can? That's not from tourists. That's from Navajos. They drink and then they think they know everything."
The guide turned on an unmarked road, passing a sun-bleached American flag torn by the wind and a strand of barbed wire. We entered neighboring Mystery Valley, where there are double arches, wild horses and, for the two hours we spent there, no other human beings. My guide said that unless a Navajo can prove he lived here before the land was declared a tribal park in 1958, there will be no new settlements.
On our journey home, we passed near the entrance to the Monument Valley Tribal Park where Navajos set up wood and corrugated metal shanties to sell silver and turquiose jewelry and fried bread to tourists. "They should burn this down," said the guide. "It just looks bad."
The tourist stays in comfort at Goulding's Lodge (rooms start at $65 nightly), a luxury motel tucked under the shadow of towering Big Rock Door Mesa. All 62 rooms have stunning views, and the lodge offers a swimming pool, restaurant, trading post, grocery store, laundromat, theater, and museum. The only place to stay in the valley, it is across the Utah state line but only 5 miles from the visitors center.
Goulding's was built on land purchased by Harry Goulding for 50 cents an acre in 1921. It was the best $320 he ever spent.
"See Goulding's up there? They get all the money. I proposed to build a small hotel, owned by Navajos, but they don't want to. They do hire a lot of Navajos, but they also spill their (treated) sewage on Navajo property."
Last year, disgusted with tourists and low pay, the guide went to Los Angeles to work in construction and made a lot of money. "I couldn't stay there," he said. "You know what I missed? I missed the air. It's so clean here, so pure."