{"id":34929,"date":"2023-04-03T12:16:58","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T18:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/towering-monument-valley-buttes-display-sunset-spectacle\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:21:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:21:33","slug":"towering-monument-valley-buttes-display-sunset-spectacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/towering-monument-valley-buttes-display-sunset-spectacle\/","title":{"rendered":"Towering Monument Valley buttes display sunset spectacle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A sunset spectacle featuring two mitten-shaped rock formations crosses Monument Valley Tribal Park from the Visitors Center in Oljato-Monument Valley, Arizona, on March 29, 2023. (Vyto Starinskas\/The Associated Press)<\/span>Vyto Starinskas<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MONUMENT VALLEY, Utah \u2013 A sunset spectacle featuring two mitten-shaped rock formations played out this week at Monument Valley on the Navajo Nation along the Arizona and Utah border.<\/p>\n

Twice a year, in late March and mid-September, spectators, photographers and videographers get a visual treat. As the sun sinks, the West Mitten Butte’s shadow crawls across the desert valley floor before climbing up the side of the East Mitten Butte.<\/p>\n

The spectacle draws people from around the world to Monument Valley Tribal Park, which already is popular with tourists.<\/p>\n

TV and movie critic Keith Phipps once described Monument Valley as having \u201cdefined what decades of moviegoers think of when they imagine the American West.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is a frequent filming location, including a number of Westerns by the late American film director John Ford, as well as the 1994 Oscar-winning film \u201cForest Gump.\u201d In the movie, the character played by Tom Hanks is seen running on the road to Monument Valley, the park’s impressive landscape in the background.<\/p>\n

\"Visitors
Visitors at the Monument Valley Tribal Park Visitors Center in Oljato-Monument Valley, Arizona, turned out March 29 to watch the Mitten Shadow Event during which the West Mitten Butte casts a shadow over the East Mitten Butte. Vyto Starinskas\/The Associated Press)<\/span>Vyto Starinskas<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A sunset spectacle featuring two mitten-shaped rock formations crosses Monument Valley Tribal Park from the Visitors Center in Oljato-Monument Valley, Arizona, on March 29. (Vyto Starinskas\/The Associated Press)<\/span>Vyto Starinskas<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Visitors
Visitors at the Monument Valley Tribal Park Visitors Center in Oljato-Monument Valley, Arizona, turned out March 29 to watch the Mitten Shadow Event during which the West Mitten Butte casts a shadow over the East Mitten Butte. (Vyto Starinskas\/The Associated Press)<\/span>Vyto Starinskas<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Visitors
Visitors watch the sunset on March 29, at the Monument Valley Tribal Park Visitors Center in Oljato-Monument Valley, Arizona. (Vyto Starinskas\/The Associated Press)<\/span>Vyto Starinskas<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A sunset spectacle featuring two mitten-shaped rock formations crosses Monument Valley Tribal Park from the Visitors Center in Oljato-Monument Valley, Arizona, on March 29, 2023. (Vyto Starinskas\/The Associated Press)Vyto Starinskas MONUMENT VALLEY, Utah \u2013 A sunset spectacle featuring two mitten-shaped rock formations played out this week at Monument Valley on the Navajo Nation along the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[3586],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-34929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arizona"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82803,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34929\/revisions\/82803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34929"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=34929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}