1. Moccasin Arch Monument Valley Visitor Center
2. Moccasin Arch Monument Valley Hike
3. Moccasin Arch Monument Valley Monument
4. Moccasin Arch Monument Valley Colorado Springs

The trip through Mystery Valley included ruins, arches, rock art, and beautiful viewpointss. Arches included The Sun's Eye, Honeymoon Bridge (above), and Moccasin Arch. One of the highlights was a well-known sheep petroglyph (below right). Monument Valley. Tours last 1.5 hours for the scenic drive all the way up to 8-hours for the Monument Valley – Mystery Valley tour. Moccasin Arch and Sun’s Eye Arch can only be visited with a Navajo Guide. Horse Riding Tribal Park. If you really want to feel like you’re in the wild, wild west, then jump on the back of a horse and venture out into the valley. Moccasin Arch, Navajo County, Arizona. Moccasin Arch is a physical feature (arch) in Navajo County. The primary coordinates for Moccasin Arch places it within the 86033 ZIP Code delivery area. Big Hogan is an arch in Arizona and has an elevation of 5427 feet. Big Hogan is situated southeast of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, close to Moccasin Arch.

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This child is showing a piece of jewelry to the Navajo craft woman who is carding wool (Prints of this Photograph)

Sunday - day 4 (continued)

Other stops on the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park Tour that stood out were one with Anasazi petroglyphs and a long one where a young Navaho woman was carding wool. Several tours were there at the same time and one of the guides convinced a young German girl from our group to let the Navaho woman use the wool to put the girls hair in a bun.

I think the Navajos were fascinated with this young woman. At the next stop, one of the other guides painted her face with mud.

There was some standing water from the previous night's storms and there was one spot where our guide said he didn't think we could make it, but he didn't want to turn back. He hesitated for a fe seconds than went on with water spraying up from the sides of the truck.

I think the ride was much more pleasant because of that rain. It wasn't until the last 20 minutes that the soil was getting so dry that dust was becoming unpleasant during the tour.

Putting the German girl's hair in a bun

Eye of the Sun

Although there are many Anasazi Petroglyphs in Monument Valley, the only ones we saw during our tour were some 700 year old images of big horn sheep in a niche below Eye of the Sun. Ansel Adams photographed these same petroglyphs in 1958, but the scratches below some of the figures at the left in the photo below were not there then. The running sheep is particularly striking.

Anasazi Petroglyphs of bug horn sheep (Prints of this photograph)

Mary beneath the Eye of the Sun

Nancy investigating some standing rock formations near the Eye of the SUn

Ear of the Wind

Moccasin Arch on left and Big Hogan Arch on right

Big Hogan

Goats near The Thumb

Moccasin Arch Monument Valley Visitor Center

From this direction, the formation at the left is John Wayne's Boot. From the other side, it is called The Thumb.

This gap is called North Window. On the left is Elephant Butte. On the right is Cly Butte, named after a well known Navajo medicine man,
who is buried at the foot of the formation.

East Mitten Butte

Our guide, Sammy, with Linda, Mary and Nancy

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Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park

Moccasin Arch Monument Valley Hike

by Chih Kwan Chen, Nov. 5, 2009

Moccasin Arch Monument Valley Monument

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park is at the border of Utah and Arizona. Its entrance is along US-163, 20 mileseast of Kayenta, Arizona.The park entrance is still in Utah, but the major part of the park is in Arizona. All tose lands, including Kayenta,belong to Navajo Nation. Paying a modest fee, visitors are allowed to drive on designated sandy and bumpy dirt roadsto view various high light points. However, to visit interesting points like Big Hogan, Moccasin Arch, Ear of the Wind andSun's Eye, one needs to join an Indian guided 4-wheel tour to get into private Indian land. We stayed at Kayenta the nightbefore and arranged a tour that starts from the motel. Without such prior arrangement, one can just drive to thevisitor center of the park, and there will be many Indian guides with 4-wheels waiting to be hired. Another longer touris called 'Hidden Valley tour'. The latter tour is mainly to view the ruins of ancient ANASAZI Indian but not much spectacular scenary. In Navajo language ANASAZI means Ancient Enemy of Navajo. Some say that the modern Hopi Indian is the decendent of ANASAZI, and others say modern Pueblo Indian is the decendant. From the size of the dwellings in those ruins, ANASAZI Indian seems to be very small in size, but modern Hopi and Pueblo Indians are normal size people.So they seem to have grown a lot in time. Navajo Nation uses Utah time, though both the tribal park and Kayenta arein Arizona. Utah time is mountain time and is one hour ahead of Arizona time that is the same as California time. When the Indian guided tour starts at 9 am, it means Navajo time, not Arizona time. At the case of our tour, an Austrarian couple confused with Arizona time and did not come down on time. Only after phone call to their room. they hurriedly came down to join the tour. A careful reservation clerk will always make sure about this time differemce.

Moccasin Arch Monument Valley Colorado Springs