MONUMENT VALLEY is located close to the Arizona-Utah border within the Navajo Nation Reservation and is part of the Colorado Plateau. U.S. Highway 163 will take you there, providing en route some tantalising examples of the geological features you will find at destination. Some of these enormous free-standing sandstone buttes reach heights of over 1,000 feet above ground level. Mid-summer daytime temperatures hover around 100F (38C) and the nights are pleasantly cool.

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Cinema-goers will recognise the territory where many early Westerns were filmed. Director John Ford made Stagecoach here with John Wayne and made nine further films here, whether or not their location was Arizona or Utah. Dozens of later films include several sequences shot here, including a few as recently as 2014. This scenery has also featured on music album covers and as part of computer/video games.

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