On the border between the US states of Arizona and Utah lies an astonishing area of soaring red rocks where coyotes howl among the carcasses of monsters.
According to the Navajo, the Native American people who call this region home, the stark, isolated rocky towers that stud this arid landscape are all that remain of terrifying beings that stalked their ancestors before being slain by ancient heroes.
The red sandstone does nothing to dispel the idea that blood might have been spilt here once. The landscape would become famous in the mid 20th century for inspiring the first great American Western movies.
This is Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, some 380 km sq of desert famed for its buttes: great towers of rock that seem to leap up to 300m high from the valley floor. 'Butte' is derived from a French word that means 'mound' or 'hill' but it doesn't quite capture the colossal sheer-sided sandstone towers with distinctive flat tops that dominate the landscape.
The most famous are a neighbouring pair of peaks called the West and East Mitten Buttes. These roughly resemble a pair of mittens each with a thumb of rock pointing inwards towards the other butte.
Other notable formations include Elephant Butte, which resembles a gigantic pachyderm; Three Sisters, a group of slender monoliths; and The Ear of the Wind, a natural rock arch that can only be visited on rare guided tours. Larger still are the mesas, which are broader, less pronounced buttes and could almost be said to be plateaus.
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Though the monster story is beguiling, the buttes of Monument Valley are the product of tectonic movement and erosion. The entire region of sandstone, known as the Colorado Plateau, was once a low lying basin that has been slowly and gently lifted by geological forces over millions of years and the floor of the valley is now up to 1500m above sea level.
In places where a hard cap of sandstone persists, wind, rain and streams gradually wash away the softer rocks around them, leaving isolated pillars. These continue to be whittled by erosion and each is surrounded by a foothill of scree. The red colour stems from oxidised iron in the rock, with grey-blue streaks from manganese oxide.
Though largely a desert, summer temperatures average in a bearable mid 30°Cs (winter however can be harsh, reaching -18°C). Wildlife flourishes, notably lizards and snakes, including the highly venomous rattlesnake, but there are also wild horses, bighorn sheep and the mountain lions and coyotes that prey on them.
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One of the more common large raptors is the golden eagle, which haunts the crags. Red-tailed hawks also hunt here. Vegetation is scarce with the classic and hardy purple sage of Western stories the most obvious shrub. A few gnarled juniper and cottonwood trees somehow survive the arid conditions.
The Navajo's name for the region, Tsé Bii' Ndzisgaii, translates roughly as 'valley of the rocks' and is a little more descriptive than the more modern 'monument' name given by explorers of European origin.
The Navajo, a tribe of pastoralists, are believed to have first arrived in what is now the southwest of the USA in the 15th century, not long before the first Spanish explorers appeared in North America. And while its thought the Spanish did reach the Valley in the 18thcentury, it remained largely unknown to any except the Navajo until the 19th century.
However, fame reached the region in the 1930s. A merchant called Harry Goulding and his wife Leone (known as 'Mike') set up a trading post in the area. The story goes that the Gouldings were so enthused with the landscape and its potential, they took photographs to Hollywood.
These reached legendary film producer John Ford who was impressed and decided to film his epic cowboy 'Western' Stagecoach among the stark towering buttes. It was a huge hit and made a star of its lead actor, John Wayne and also the Utah-Arizona countryside. The herds of native wild horses would no doubt have made very welcome extras, too. John Ford Point, a dramatic overlook, was later named after the producer.
After Stagecoach and its staggering backdrops, Westerns would dominate the US film industry for at least the next 20 years. And of course, many other artists, photographers and filmmakers have been drawn to Monument Valley since. For instance, the 1994 film Forrest Gump features and iconic scene with Tom Hanks' eponymous character jogging along Route 163 to a backdrop of buttes.
Despite its fame and upwards of 350,000 visitors a year, Monument Valley remains a sacred place to the Navajo nation and is a part of its 65000 km sq Navajo Nation reserve.
The Navajo people steward the region through the Navajo Nation Parks and Recreation department and provide guided tours and experiences within the park. Some particularly sensitive sites, such as the Ear of the Wind, can only be visited with special permission.
But it's worth it to experience this extraordinary land of red rocks and blue skies.
Top image: Francesco Riccardo Iacomino / Getty Images
