The Monument Valley is the national symbol of the USA

The Monument Valley in the dry language of geologists is a plateau with the remnants of the mountains. The secret of its formation is quite simple. In the Mesozoic era, the waters of the ancient sea splashed on this place. Millions of mollusks, living out their short life, left on the bottom of the shell, which, crumbling and pressing, turned into deposits of limestone and chalk. At the end of the Cretaceous, the earth's firmament began to rise, the sea receded. The plateau has risen upward. The rest was completed by the winds, the rains and the temperature drops of the desert climate. Moisture washed out the softest rocks, and the remnants - solid soils, withstood the onslaught of the elements - amaze our imagination with their bizarre outlines.

Not for nothing that the Monument Valley bears such a name. The human eye pulls out familiar shapes in a meaningless conglomeration of rocks, endowing them with poetic names. "Sombrero", "Rukavichki", "Nasedka", "Three Sisters" and other sculptural groups attract thousands of tourists. However, it is difficult to get to this wonderful place. It is located on the border of the states of Arizona and Utah, on the edge of the desert. It leads there the only highway on which by car from the nearest city - Flagstaff - to get about four hours.

But, despite the inaccessibility of this place, without a visit to the Valley of Monuments and the Grand Canyon, not a single tourist trip to the United States. It's hard to believe that until the 30s of the last century, this region was a forgotten corner of the world in which the Navajo tribe resided on the reservation. A white settler Harry Gaulding took a few photographs of the area and went with them to Hollywood, after which a film crew headed by John Ford arrived in the canyon. Now this area is a national symbol of the USA. In addition to the cult films (for example, "Stagecoach", "Gold McKenna", "Forrest Gamp"), the landscape of the remnants of mountains is the backdrop for the world-famous advertising "Marlboro".

The Monument Valley is the English name of the area. The Navajo Indians themselves - the indigenous inhabitants of the desert plateau - dubbed it more poetically: "A place between rocks where trees do not grow." The fantasy of white immigrants and aborigines seems to be competing, giving the rocks more colorful and sonorous names. The valley can be traveled on foot, by car, "cowboy" - on horseback. The Ostentzian plateau is part of the Grand Canyon National Park , and if you've got here, do not limit yourself to the Monument Valley alone.

You can ride along the edge of a huge precipice on a tourist train, or you can fly over it on a small plane. There are several impressive viewing platforms: the Celestial Path (a glass bridge over a depression of 1220 m depth) or a platform with a transparent Skywalk bottom. In the south, the Monument Valley is confined to the Painted Desert, in which there is a petrified forest. The trees, which grew still in the Mesozoic, did not rot, but were petrified. Between the annual rings of these ancient trunks are visible druses of semi-precious stones formed during the crystallization of wood. And if you move west of the abyssal valley, you can get to the Rainbow Bridge - an absolutely symmetrical stone arch - also a weathering product.