Monument Valley April 9th-11

Rick Nantais

Well-Known Member
Hello fellow photographers
Leaving Cave Creek and going for the first time to Monument Valley. Any advice and tricks for me ? Place to stop by and must see ?

Thanks for your input

Richard
 

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Monument Valley is a fun place!

I don't know if you are staying in your RV, but even if you do, you should take at least 1 night and stay in The View hotel. Get on the 2nd floor on the south end of the hotel and you can set up your camera on your hotel room deck and capture the stars and Milky Way at night! You can stay warm and toasty with just the quick dash outside to take your Milky Way photo.

Some of the most iconic shots can be taken right there from the parking lot for the visitor center, cafe and hotel.

There will be a main loop road that goes around the park that you can travel on with your admission fee. Not sure an RV could make it, but maybe.

I can recommend a couple of tours.

1st one is a pre-dawn tour that will take you out to the Totem Pole before sunrise. After sunrise they will take you to a few other arches and caves that you can't get to on the normal self drive tour. That one costs around $100 if I recall correctly, it's been a couple of years since I did that one.

2nd is a tour up to Hunts Mesa. When I did it, it was an overnight trip, I don't know if it is done as a day trip. With the overnight, we all brought our sleeping bags along. It was almost $500 to do, but you get magical views of Monument Valley that you can't get any other way.

I am sure there are day tours you can do also that would take you to some of the locations you can't get to with the self-drive tour, but I haven't done those.

If you are going up there, I would also highly recommend Gooseneck State Park. It's way better then Horseshoe Bend, and has only about .01% of the amount of people that Horseshoe Bend gets. :)
 

Rick Nantais

Well-Known Member
Monument Valley is a fun place!

I don't know if you are staying in your RV, but even if you do, you should take at least 1 night and stay in The View hotel. Get on the 2nd floor on the south end of the hotel and you can set up your camera on your hotel room deck and capture the stars and Milky Way at night! You can stay warm and toasty with just the quick dash outside to take your Milky Way photo.

Some of the most iconic shots can be taken right there from the parking lot for the visitor center, cafe and hotel.

There will be a main loop road that goes around the park that you can travel on with your admission fee. Not sure an RV could make it, but maybe.

I can recommend a couple of tours.

1st one is a pre-dawn tour that will take you out to the Totem Pole before sunrise. After sunrise they will take you to a few other arches and caves that you can't get to on the normal self drive tour. That one costs around $100 if I recall correctly, it's been a couple of years since I did that one.

2nd is a tour up to Hunts Mesa. When I did it, it was an overnight trip, I don't know if it is done as a day trip. With the overnight, we all brought our sleeping bags along. It was almost $500 to do, but you get magical views of Monument Valley that you can't get any other way.

I am sure there are day tours you can do also that would take you to some of the locations you can't get to with the self-drive tour, but I haven't done those.

If you are going up there, I would also highly recommend Gooseneck State Park. It's way better then Horseshoe Bend, and has only about .01% of the amount of people that Horseshoe Bend gets. :)
Thanks for all the infos. We will be towing a car and visiting with it.
 
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