18th April: Monument Valley

From Wd

Current revision as of 10:28, 22 August 2007

'Bond jumped off this dam in Goldeneye. What a daredevil! Please note that Bevan was the guest photographer throughout the camping trip.' (Comments by Dan, photo by Bev 18-Apr-07, at Lake Powell Dam)

Gavin's diary—10.50pm Wednesday 18th April 2007, Gouldings, Monument Valley

Hemmed in by a sandstorm, we have abandoned the idea of tents for the night and have instead chosen to pay $20 each for three apartments near Monument Valley.

Today we nearly died of wind erosion (or sand-blasting). We took a guided tour of Monument Valley in open trucks and saw considerable poverty among the Navajo Indians who live in the shadow of these awesome natural monuments. Apparently our guide had 10 children, despite being less than 40 years old.

The start of the Colorado River, seen through a wire fence from the top of the Lake Powell Dam (Gavin 18-Apr-07)

Monument Valley (Bev 18-Apr-07)

from Dan's blog:

'The geology of all parks throughout the trip was most interesting. In terms of variety and age, Grand Canyon stood out. However, Monument Valley, in the Navajo Nation, brought home the timescales involved in their formation because it has nearly disappeared.

'Nearly, that is, on a geological timescale. But to all of recorded civilisation it has always looked pretty much the same, and it probably always will.

'Fifty million years ago, layers of rock filled the entire area up to the top of the buttes you can see in the picture. Since then, water and wind carved out cracks in the rocks, over time cutting out more and more (depositing the debris mostly in California). Today, only a few sparse structures remain, and eventually they will disappear too. The remaining lumps have steep edges because the lower layers of rock are softer and undermine the upper layers only when the lower ones erode.

'As an analogy, imagine waking up in the morning and seeing a blanket of snow. The sun comes out and by noon it has all disappeared. Perhaps at one minute to 12, there might just be a few isolated mounds of snow ready to melt away. The ‘monuments’ in the valley are those last remaining bits. We are stuck in this 11:59 moment through all of civilisation. Throughout humanity’s future, it is unlikely that a map of the monuments produced today will ever exist at a time when it becomes wildly inaccurate.'

What lurks beneath Chuck's cap? (Chuck's camera 18-Apr-07)

Jinny Goes to Monument (Gavin 18-Apr-07)

Archaeologists will be intrigued to hear that this was the campsite that TrekAmerica used in previous years. (Gavin 18-Apr-07)

More of the disused campsite (Gavin 18-Apr-07)

Inside a Navajo hogan (Gavin 18-Apr-07)

Inside another Navajo hogan (Gavin 18-Apr-07)

The outside is less appealing, but highly effective against sandstorms, presumably (Gavin 18-Apr-07)

The Open Truck (James 18-Apr-07)

Look! A dodgy hairstyle! (James 18-Apr-07)

And another! (James 18-Apr-07)

Jinny's Blog

I wake at 7-ish for a 9.00am departure. Today we will not make breakfast—it is included in the price of the steak dinner the campsite owners made us last night. Breakfast is Swedish pancakes with bacon, OJ, coffee and fresh orange. No eggs, no toast. Kinda sad really. Jenny didn’t eat at all because she does not like pancakes. And we had loaded the trailer early since we weren’t going to make breakfast. We have been on Mountain Time since Zion but for some reason my Cingular phone is perpetually confused and is always ahead or behind local time. A couple of days we crossed time-zones back and forth during the day and Ron set the “van” time as our time. Except my Cingular network set my phone to whatever time it thought it was. And I didn’t bring a watch (don’t ask why, I have no good answer). That is why I woke up an hour early (5 instead of 6) the day after Angels Landing hike. I am sure the people who live there have learnt not to rely on their phone for the time.

Weather was good, 50s at night and upper 60s in the day. Lake Powell has had the best weather so far. Lunch was at some place on our way to Monument Valley that I can’t remember. But I do remember it was very windy. Jen and Gary started towards a McDs close by, I ran after them. Then Gavin and James came after me. Before we knew it most of us had opted to eat indoors instead of in the crazy wind. Though we didn’t know it then, the wind was a sign of things to come.

A two-hour Navajo-guided tour of the Valley was part of the trip. When we got there, it was still windy and we made jokes about flying out of the open truck. When we got in and took off, it got windier and worse still, we drove right into the desert and the valley. Later I learnt that the winds were at 35mph and with the sand flying into our faces (noses, ears and all…) it was the closest I have been to a sandstorm. We saw three sisters, two hands, elephants, camel and several other monuments. At some point the guide stopped for us to take pictures at a large sand dune that Gavin, Bev and I climbed to the top of. Bevan decided to roll down. Monkey see, monkey do: I rolled down after him, but not before I had emptied my pockets of everything. It was quite a thrill rolling down (especially since I had to close my eyes so I wasn’t quite sure where I was going). I ate a lot of sand that day, I guess it belongs to the fibre family so it must be good for me. We passed female hogans (which are half an oval), traditional home to the Indians which represent the female womb and the male conical hogans which represent a giant eagle (I think it represents something else, but I will let it go). There are very few Indian families that actually live in the Valley, it must be freaky to be surrounded by all those lonely structures that look like animals and birds. Or maybe beautiful, depending on your perspective and what you are used to.

When we returned to the Visitors Centre, it was closed due to power outage. We got to our campsite and it was too windy to set up camp, we rented a few rooms in the hotel close to the camp instead. We were going to sleep on real beds, and watch TV! Yahoo! But the news was all about VTU and quite depressing, so James and I switched to Will and Grace instead. Ah, civilization!

Dodgy Video Footage

• The Monument Valley Experience (Duration 6:24)