It’s hard not to get a bit emotional in Monument Valley, it’s just that kind of place.
Awe is the first emotion; because the landscape, towering surreal sandstone buttes that look like they have no business being on earth, are awesome — awesome like what-a-truly-incredible-planet-we-live-on awesome.
You will find no shortage of guides along the Utah- Arizona border willing to help you explore either on foot, or horseback, or 4×4.
But there’s only one real option — horseback.
You can negotiate anything from an hour to a week, and haggle about the price which usually ranges from about $10 for an hour to $50 for a day of riding.
The guides are extraordinarily knowledgeable about the region’s history. And after a potted version of what was basically a genocide (culminating in “The Long Walk” when the battered and bowed Navajo walked a corpse-strewn path to a new and wholly inadequate reservation) you’ll find yourself emotionally wrought things in a silent landscape, the winds, genuinely affecting.
