Monument Valley - September 2025

The trip to Monument Valley was not with a group or company like BCJ or Akari. It was just me meeting up with Steve Cassel, a friend who I met on a trip to Yellowstone. We get along well and have met up before for the Whooping Crane trip to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. 

I'm not a landscape photographer, as you are about to see, but I always wanted to see Monument Valley and this was a great opportunity to do it. We stayed at The View hotel. Never has a hotel been so aptly named. You could have had a pretty good landscape trip by checking in and shooting from the balcony at sunrise and sunset. Every room faces the same direction and they all overlook The Mittens and Merrick Butte. Pretty spectacular.

We had a Navaho guide named Carl Phillips that got us to the right place at the right time every sunrise and sunset. In the middle of the day we explored on our own.