Desert Daze - A Southwest Adventure (XIII)

Part Thirteen: From Mexican Hat to Muley Point

(Scroll down to start from the beginning)

Leaving the monoliths of Monument Valley behind, I drive across a flat plain towards the tiny town of Mexican Hat. The town gets its name from a large, flat rock balanced precariously on a smaller base below; it’s really quite a spectacle. The San Juan River runs through here carving inexorably deeper and deeper into the earth exposing an amazement of colored layers; the cliffs here look a lot like one of those glass enclosed layered ‘sand art’ pictures come to life in grand scale.
I take the dirt road that leads up to and then beyond ‘Hat Rock’; it ends at the banks of the San Juan. This would be a beautiful place to camp but I decide that I want to be at Muley Point for sunset so I turn around and drive back to the main highway. From here, I can see Cedar Mesa looming in the distance like a giant wall; Muley Point is at the top of that wall. To get up there you must take a steep gravel road that ascends 1,100 feet in three miles over a series of switchbacks. Well before the beginning of that ascent, there are signs posted dissuading large vehicles from continuing on; some of the switchbacks involve extremely tight turns.

So it’s ironic when, as I begin the ascent, I see a huge tanker truck coming down towards me, brakes squealing and engine roaring - the driver has obviously ignored all the warning signs. I pull over to let him by; he waves thanks. At one particularly tight bend, he performs a three point turn to make it; he seems to know what to expect, he must have driven this route before.

When I reach the top, I pull over to get out and look back. The view is immense, to the south I see the buttes of Monument Valley and the Valley of the Gods (including the fancifully named Setting Hen, Rooster and Lady in the Bathtub Buttes) sticking up like so many fins and turrets from the desert floor. To the west, I can see some of the goosenecks of the San Juan and to the east the vast desert plain stretches out seemingly forever.

After marveling over this view for a few minutes, I climb back into the truck and continue on until I reach the turnoff for Muley Point Road. It’s a rough gravelly road and, like before when I traveled the deeply rutted road to Coyote Buttes, I must focus my full attention on my driving to avoid bottoming out. It’s a jostley five mile ride, but all that is immediately forgotten when the view of the goosenecks of San Juan River canyon suddenly appears at the end.

I’m now standing at the edge of a precipitous cliff looking down thousands of feet into the depths of the canyon. The river here turns back on itself repeatedly creating the goosenecks; at one point, it travels five river miles but only makes one mile of forward progress. The river that did all this sculpting is mostly hidden behind rock walls; only in a few places does it reveal itself. This incredible view has me hypnotized, I can’t look away and, for some reason, I get the feeling that the canyon is trying to suck me in - I move back a few steps from the edge.

Next: Muley Magic – The Best Sunset and Sunrise Views Money Can’t Buy