'John Wayne's Boot' in Monument Valley, Navajo Tribal Lands, Utah
Monument Valley provides perhaps the most enduring and definitive images of the American West. The isolated red mesas and buttes surrounded by empty, sandy desert have been filmed and photographed countless times over the years for movies, adverts and holiday brochures. Because of this, the area may seem quite familiar, even on a first visit, but it is soon evident that the natural colours really are as bright and deep as those in all the pictures. The valley is not a valley in the conventional sense, but rather a wide flat, sometimes desolate landscape, interrupted by the crumbling formations rising hundreds of feet into the air, the last remnants of the sandstone layers that once covered the entire region. This great valley boasts sandstone masterpieces that tower at heights of 400 to 1,000 feet framed by scenic clouds casting shadows that graciously roam the desert floor. The angle of the sun accents these graceful formations, providing scenery that is simply spellbinding. Natural forces of wind and water that eroded the land spent the last 50 million years cutting in to and peeling away at the surface of the plateau.
Size: 3350px × 5044px
Location: Monument Valley, Navajo Tribal Lands, Utah
Photo credit: © Brenda Kean / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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