Clinging to Mitchell Mesa

A QUIRKY QUESTION POPPED INTO MY head as I rode a horse to the top of Mitchell Mesa in spectacular Monument Valley: Did John Wayne ever get saddle sores?

In fact, it was a perfectly natural query under the circumstances.

Wayne, the long-reigning archduke of Western moviedom, came to mind because he will forever be linked to Monument Valley. He galloped gallantly through the vast, vibrant red rock landscapes in such classic horse operas as Stagecoach, Rio Grande and The Searchers.

My concern over any posterior discomfort Wayne might have endured stemmed directly from my own saddle-related sensations. A horseman of excruciatingly modest experience, I had been riding for more than five hours when my party — including two Navajo guides and photographer Kerrick James — dismounted at last atop Mitchell Mesa.

To call my sit bones slightly sore outdoes the Duke on the stoicism scale.

But I soon learned that a temporarily tender backside felt like a small price to pay for a magnificent journey to a remote geologic wonderland of sandstone buttes, towers, cliffs and mesas — all in hues crying out for Technicolor and Kodachrome.

Mitchell Mesa, a 6,586-foot table of stone rising a thousand feet above the surrounding high desert, rates among the many scenic gems of Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation in northeastern Arizona.

While limited areas of the valley floor are open to tourist traffic, the only way for non-Indians to visit backcountry sites like Mitchell Mesa is in the company of Navajo guides.

Mitchell Mesa

Text by DOUGLAS KREUTZ    Photographs by KERRICK JAMES

There's no route up the steep-walled mesa for passenger cars, pickup trucks or even rugged four-wheel-drive vehicles. This is horse country.

And so it was that I had found myself perched atop a sturdy, surefooted, slightly headstrong mount named Apache at the start of our Mitchell Mesa journey on a warm, brilliant morning in late August.

Our guides, Marvin Tohtsonie and Nick Holiday, who often lead trips for outfitter Ed Black's Monument Valley Trail Rides company, had thoughtfully selected tall, muscular Apache to accommodate my 6-foot 3-inch, 190-pound frame. They'd also meticulously loaded two packhorses with camping gear, food, water and other supplies for our three-day, two-night trip.

Kerrick and I, pleased with the rather dashing figures we fancied we cut in the saddle, wore big cowpoke grins as we rode out with Marvin and Nick past what we also fancied were admiring tourists near the Monument Valley Visitors Center.

Only some hours later would we gain a degree of enlightenment about horseback travel. To wit, a steady fiveto six-hour ride across rugged desert and up a vertiginous trail to a mesa-top has little in common with the leisurely hour-long trail rides enjoyed by many Monument Valley visitors. Our backcountry journey took us to a high, wild, uninhabited, little-visited destination with beauty all around us. But we learned that such a trip calls for stamina, a ration of determination and the ability to laugh at the funny way you walk at the end of the day.

If you have seen any of the Monument Valley Westerns starring Wayne and directed by John Ford, you're probably familiar with the landscape of crimson cliffs and green-dotted desert that formed the backdrop of our ride. The stunning stone monuments of West Mitten Butte, East Mitten Butte, Merrick Butte and Elephant Butte soared over us on the first stretch of the route. Happily, we were so captivated by these formations — which are some of the great "signature sights" of the valley — that we gave little thought to the increasingly tender interface of blue jeans and saddle leather.

After a short rest and water break under the blessed shade of a lone, bushy juniper tree, our little expedition crossed the main Monument Valley tourist drive, passed a spot known as John Ford's Point and then rode over a trail-less expanse of desert toward the stone towers known as the Three Sisters.

Here, the going was sometimes slow as we worked our way over rocky terrain and through several deep-cut arroyos. Somewhere in this stretch, I found it necessary to dismount and try to talk a little horse sense into Apache. He had shown little interest, up to that point, in responding to my instructions as to speed and choice of route. But my calming tones and a little threat having to do with dog food seemed to put him into a more cooperative mood, and thereafter we were all but Roy Rogers and Trigger.

After passing the Three Sisters, we worked our way around a shoulder of Mitchell Mesa and started up the unnamed canyon that served as our ascent route to the top. We followed what was once a precarious road to a mine. The mine was now abandoned, and the road had been downgraded by erosion to a rugged trail barely fit for surefooted horses.

After some straightforward going on the first part of the climb, the trail narrowed and snaked upward in steep switchbacks over exposed bedrock. We dismounted and led our horses and the two pack animals up this exhilarating segment of the route. One of the packhorses took a nasty tumble, but a quick response by Marvin and Nick kept the critter from panicking and slipping entirely off the trail. Near the top of the canyon, the angle of the trail eased a bit and we were able to climb back onto our mounts — a development that did not qualify as entirely good news to my saddle-sore self.

Then, just when I was beginning to ask myself why I would want to continue toiling up this heap of stone on a one-horse-power off-road vehicle named Apache, the question was dramatically answered. We polished off a final switchback, rode onto the broad, flat top of the mesa and took a long, deep draft of that sensation called “top of the world.”

Apache wasn't equipped with an odometer.

If you think Monument Valley looks good from the visitors center, you ought to get a view from up there. From various points on the mile-long, half-mile-wide mesa-top, we could survey virtually the entire expanse of this great valley.

We rode leisurely on flat terrain toward our campsite on the northern tip of the mesa, and could take in the Mittens, Merrick Butte, Sentinel Mesa and a host of other stone islands whose summits were now slightly lower than our lofty perch. Southeast of us, beyond the Three Sisters, rose the ramparts of Rain God Mesa and Thunderbird Mesa.

Later, after we had set up camp, Marvin would point out formations called Castle, Bear and Rabbit, and Stagecoach. And the next morning, I would look down at Mitten View Campground, Mitchell Butte and Gray Whiskers as I hiked the northwestern edge of the mesa.

But now, at trail’s end, we took time for some simple pleasures. The first of these was dismounting; second, quaffing a delicious drink of cold water from an insulated bottle. The third was pulling the saddle from Apache and knowing I wouldn’t need to go near it again until the day after tomorrow.

How far had we traveled? It’s hard to say. Apache wasn’t equipped with an odometer. A rough estimate, taking into account our sometimes meandering route, is 8 to 10 miles.

Experienced equestrians probably would not find the ride especially tiring, even though it involves negotiating some slow, difficult terrain. But none of us — not even Marvin or Nick — seemed eager for a supplementary late-afternoon gallop around the mesa.

So we settled in and made ourselves at home on our personal patch of high lonesome. Kerrick set up his tent on an open expanse near the rim of the mesa: a nylon room with a drop-dead view. I pitched one beside a small rock shelf in a grove of fragrant junipers. Marvin and Nick used a tarp to erect a sleeping shelter near a clump of junipers where the horses were tethered.

Kerrick, after a brief rest, was in full photographic fettle — scouting locations, assembling a tripod and unpacking cameras. He had created masterful photographs of the valley from other observation points in recent years, and now he was on a quest for the quintessential view from Mitchell Mesa.

A small storm cell rumbled over the mesa before dark, but dropped just sufficient sprinkles to settle the dust in camp.

Later, we collected enough dry downed wood to build a small fire for a feast of steak and beans. The next night, we would sit up for a while and swap lies, but the operative word that first evening was “pooped.” I stretched out in my tent 15 minutes after the last bite of steak and drifted toward my first dream 10 minutes later.

The next day seemed like the Monument Valley version of being happily marooned on an island — but in this case it was a “sky island,” a grand piece of high ground rising out of the surrounding desert. Not only did we have this mesa-top aerie entirely to ourselves, but it had the wonderful, mysterious feel of a place little-visited, little-known.

While Kerrick worked the dazzling morning light with his cameras, and Marvin and Nick went in search of water for the horses, I set off on foot — no saddle today, thank you — to explore the northern rim and western edge of Mitchell Mesa. I found few signs of recent human passage. The remnants of the mining operation on the western side of the mesa contrasted with the otherwise natural landscape of rugged rim rock, aged juniper trees, late-blooming yellow daisies and purple-blue sand verbena.

Hiking back to camp along the northern rim, I found a spot, albeit a steep one, where it might be possible to descend to the valley without the aid of climbing gear. But no route for horses. Now it was clear why our guides had led us on a circuitous passage halfway around the mesa to reach the one canyon suitable for horses.

By midday, when I arrived back at camp, I found Kerrick snoozing on a rock shaded by an enormous juniper. Landscape photographers find little use for the flat, glaring light on either side of noon, preferring to save their energy and film for the sweet hues around sunrise and sunset.

Well, I was pretty good at lazing, myself. I set aside my notebook, brewed a pot of coffee on my camp stove and settled in under my own small shade tree for a couple of hours of reading in a kind of silence you'll find in no library.

Just before dusk, the four of us convened on a rock outcrop at the edge of the rim on the northernmost end of the mesa. Kerrick focused on photography, but Marvin wanted to talk movies.

We were, Marvin noted, perched on a perfect spot to observe the locations of some of the many movies that had been filmed in the valley.

Of course we'd seen formations like the Mittens and Merrick Butte in some of the John Wayne-John Ford Westerns. But that barely scratched the surface, Marvin said. Using his hand as a pointer and the valley itself for reference, he directed our attention to the sites where Stagecoach came to life, where Forrest Gump stopped running in the movie of that name, and where a crucial scene in Thelma and Louise took place. And, Marvin added, if we would look across intervening mesas to the Totem Pole, we'd be able to admire the rock pinnacle Clint Eastwood climbed in a movie called The Eiger Sanction.

All well and good, those movies, I thought. Each of them caught a bit of the spirit of Monument Valley. But they paled, positively paled, compared with the vast sandstone splendor of the real thing. AH