Moon Over Monument Valley, Arizona Art Print - Posterlovers.com Featured Poster

This stunning photograph features a full moon hanging over Monument Valley. Notice the stunning kaleidoscope of colors in the sky behind this amazing red rock formation, which is known as a mitten butte. A butte is an an isolated hill or mountain that rises abruptly above the surrounding land.

Monument Valley is located on the border between Utah and Arizona. The state line passes through the most famous Monument Valley landmarks, which are found around the border near the small Indian town of Goulding. The town was established in 1923 as a trading post, and now has a comprehensive range of visitor services. The valley is part of the Navajo Indian Reservation and and is a Tribal Park. The Navajo name for the valley is Tsé Bii' Ndzisgaii (Valley of the Rocks). Navajo Hogans sit in the shadows of the buttes and native people regard Monument Valley as a sacred place.

Monument Valley is part of the Colorado Plateau. The floor is largely Cutler Red siltstone or its sand deposited by the meandering rivers that carved the valley. The valley's vivid red color comes from iron oxide exposed in the weathered siltstone. The darker, blue-gray rocks in the valley get their color from manganese oxide. The buttes are clearly stratified, with three principal layers. The lowest layer is Organ Rock shale, the middle de Chelly sandstone and the top layer is Moenkopi shale capped by Shinarump siltstone. The valley is not actually a valley in the conventional sense, but rather a wide flat, sometimes desolate landscape, interrupted by the crumbling formations rising hundreds of feet into the air, the last remnants of the sandstone layers that once covered the entire region.

Monument Valley provides perhaps the most lasting and easily recognizable images of the American West. The isolated red mesas and buttes surrounded by empty, sandy desert have been filmed and photographed countless times over the years for movies, advertisements and travel brochures.

Monument Valley in on Screen

Director John Ford's 1939 film Stagecoach, starring John Wayne, has had a long-lasting influence in making the Valley famous. After that, Ford returned to film nine more westerns — even though some of the films were not set in Arizona or Utah. For example The Searchers was set in Texas, but filmed in Monument Valley.

In the 1950s, the implied association with John Wayne's macho character made the buttes a natural choice as the background for the Marlboro Man in the marketing of Marlboro-brand cigarettes.

Though mostly shot in Spain and Italy, Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West, features two scenes shot on location in Monument Valley.

The Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey features footage of Monument Valley. This footage is used as the surface of an alien planet to which protagonist Dave Bowman travels through a stargate.

Clint Eastwood's movie The Eiger Sanction was also partly filmed in Monument Valley. The "Totem Pole" feature has been off-bounds to climbers since the movie was filmed here.

In the 1980s American action/espionage television series Airwolf, a hollowed butte is portrayed as the secret hiding place ("The Lair") of the eponymous high-tech military helicopter. Monument Valley is renamed the "Valley of the Gods" in this series.

The MacGyver episode "Eagles" (Season 2, Episode 8) has shots in the Valley. MacGyver is gathering eggs from an eagle's nest on top of a butte.

The Steven Spielberg film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, starring Harrison Ford, includes a scene shot in the Valley.

In Back to the Future III, Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, drives from 1955 to 1885 from a drive-in theatre set at the Valley's base.

Back to the Future Part III
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In National Lampoon's Vacation the Griswold's station wagon falls apart in the Valley.

In Forrest Gump, Forrest ends his cross-country run here. He was running north on U.S. Route 163 before he stopped.

In the made-for-TV movie 10.5: Apocalypse, Monument Valley is flooded from seismic activity.

The 2003 Led Zeppelin DVD features the West Mitten of Monument Valley on the cover.

Ridley Scott's 1991 film Thelma & Louise features some shots of Monument Valley in the second half.

The 1969 classic Easy Rider includes some footage of Monument Valley toward the beginning.

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