MarknRobin Making Memories: Moki Dugway, Muley Pt & Monument Valley -- AWESOME!!

Very near the place where we exited the Valley Of The Gods (on Friday morning) we found "the notorious Moki Dugway, three miles of harrowing, unpaved switchbacks that accomplish an ascent of 1,100 feet via grades of up to 10 percent". We did hesitate before embarking on this "harrowing" trail, and we did hold our breath several times enroute, but it was AWESOME! The views were magnificent. It's so sad that photographs don't do it justice!

At the top of Moki Dugway is Muley Point with a wonderful panoramic view of the Four Corners region. We met a nice couple from Florida there and they offered to take a picture of us.

Our next stop, after going back DOWN the Moki Dugway, was Goosenecks State Park near the Utah/Arizona border where the San Juan River snakes back and forth a thousand feet below. It was impossible to get all the twists and turns into one picture. I don't have a wide enough lens!

From there we headed to Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park which belongs to the Navajo people. Red sandstone rock formations, mesas, buttes and spires, fill the desert valley (along with ALOT of dust-- the vehicles were covered with it!) We were amazed to see the parking lot at the Visitor's Center crowded with RV's, cars, and tour buses. Our trip thus far has been relatively solitary, but this place was teeming with visitors. We decided to check into a guided tour. The terrain is rugged, the roads unpaved and rutted, and you have limited access to the valley if you do a self-guided tour. The tours with Navajo guides include the "back country" which is off-limits otherwise. We went to the small "tour building" (shack) and were told that it would be $85 a person for the 2 1/2 hour tour in an open air vehicle that seats about 9-10 people. That seemed like a lot of money so we declined. Part way across the parking lot we were stopped by one of the Navajo fellas that had been standing around outside of the "tour building". He said he would take us on a private tour for $50 a person -- just the two of us in an old tour van. We were kind of hesitant at first, not knowing if we could trust him or not, but Mark decided we should do it. We gave him $100 and he handed it over to his old uncle who owned the van and was seated at a table behind the "tour building". He led us to an old white van with a badly cracked windshield and torn seats, and off we went! It was wonderful:) Twenty-eight year old "Bart" (his nickname) was very personable and gave us a great tour. The roads were very bad and he would weave all over the place in an attempt to miss the worst spots. Most of the time he seemed to be driving a little recklessly on the left side of the road, which would have been fine except we weren't the only vehicle on the road! All the tour drivers seemed to have the same, bordering on reckless, driving habits. I felt a little sorry for the tourists who had elected to drive their own vehicles not realizing the Navajo tour guides don't share the road very well!! I asked Bart if there were ever any collisions . . . and YES, there are . . . . . Soooo . . . We rattled and bounced along, sometimes fast and sometimes slow . . . We made several photo stops, almost got stuck a couple times, and had a wonderful tour! He answered all of our questions and showed us all of the highlights. Four or five times he led us on short walks to experience a particular site . . . climbing rocks to view a special portal or finding pictographs and petroglyphs on the cliffside. Several times he had us "use your imagination" to see the 'Indian Chief', 'the Eagle', the 'Sleeping Dragon', etc, portrayed in the rock structures . . . and amazingly they could be clearly seen. At one stop he led us to a huge curved cave-like opening in the rock and had us sit down and close our eyes while he sang a beautiful song of blessing in the Navajo language. It was 2 1/2 hours well worth the money spent. In fact, we tipped him $20 because we felt he deserved more than the $30 that would be his cut of the $100 tour fee. So for $120 vs $170 we got a personal tour in an enclosed vehicle that protected us from the majority of billowing dust clouds stirred up by passing vehicles:)