# @roy.coffee.photography on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DaIks2SilKG
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/67240362-roycoffeephotography-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/4c556c086f.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-06-28T15:05:34.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Roy Coffee (@roy.coffee.photography) — https://gondola.cc/roy.coffee.photography

## Caption

Mesa Rim Trail sits behind The View Hotel - open only to guests, rarely crowded, rarely photographed. Just 0.8 miles, but every step reveals a different view. Let's start our journey with one of my favourite pictures of Monument Valley - a storm rolling in, the last light cracking open, and the Mitten Shadow caught at exactly the right moment.Swipe to discover where the trail leads.

��#monumentvalley #visitarizona #arizona_landscapes  #nationalparkphotography #americanroadtrip 

The scale of these monuments is hard to believe until you're standing at their base - East Mitten alone rises over 1,000 feet from the valley floor, with Merrick Butte visible just behind. From Mesa Trail, the dirt road below looks like a scratch someone made and forgot about.

Halfway up the trail, an ancient juniper grew into itself and formed a natural arch - a window the desert built over centuries. The kind of frame you don't find, you discover. West Mitten sits perfectly on the other side.

Mitchell Butte doesn't get many postcards. But at golden hour, when the sagebrush catches fire and the sky goes soft - it earns its place. Some formations don't need to be famous.

Grey Whiskers is an 800-foot sandstone butte named after a highly respected Navajo medicine man - dághaa' libáí in Navajo, meaning exactly that. He was instrumental in creating the Monument Valley Tribal Park in 1958. A butte that carries a name. And a name worth carrying.

Near the top of Mesa Rim Trail, looking back: Sentinel Mesa stretches across the horizon, King on His Throne and Stagecoach visible in the distance, a glimpse of West Mitten on the right - and The View Hotel sitting tiny in the valley below. This is Monument Valley from above

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 5,594
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- **Comments:** 99

## Tags

visitarizona, monumentvalley, arizona_landscapes, nationalparkphotography, americanroadtrip

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