Moki Dugway, Valley of the Gods

The Moki Dugway was cut in the 1950s during the Cold War uranium boom, built by a mining company to haul ore down from the mesa top to the mill at Mexican Hat. Bulldozers and blasting carved a bench into the cliff face, switchbacking down the sheer rim so trucks could descend the escarpment that had long made Cedar Mesa a barrier to travel.

The name Moki is an old and now dated term once used by settlers for the Ancestral Puebloan people whose cliff dwellings and granaries dot this region, and dugway is a Western word for a road cut into a hillside. Both names endure on maps even as understanding has changed. The mines closed long ago, but the road remains, maintained as a gravel state route and one of the scenic wonders of the area.

At the foot of the dugway spreads the Valley of the Gods, a broad basin studded with towering sandstone buttes, spires, and monoliths eroded out of the surrounding rock. A rough dirt loop road winds among the formations, each of which carries a fanciful name, and the whole valley has the feel of a quieter, less-crowded Monument Valley. It is public land, open and unfenced, and often nearly empty.

Seen from the switchbacks of the dugway, the valley reveals its full scale, the red towers casting long shadows across the flats at dawn and dusk. Photographers prize the interplay of the winding road, the cliff, and the monoliths, and the overlook near the base of the climb is one of the finest vantage points on the whole route.

A short distance from the top of the dugway, an unpaved spur leads out to Muley Point, one of the great overlooks of the Colorado Plateau. From its rim the land drops away in vast tiers to the goosenecks of the San Juan River, where the river coils back on itself in deep entrenched meanders carved thousands of feet into the rock. On a clear day the view reaches to Monument Valley and beyond.

The goosenecks are a textbook example of an entrenched river. Long ago the San Juan wandered in lazy loops across a flat plain; as the land slowly rose, the river cut straight down while keeping its original bends, sawing the meanders into the stone. From Muley Point and the nearby state park, you look down on millions of years of that patient work.

This is the heart of Bears Ears country, a landscape sacred to many Native nations, including the Navajo, or Diné, the Ute Mountain Ute, the Hopi, the Zuni, and other Pueblo peoples. Cedar Mesa above the dugway holds an extraordinary density of Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings, granaries, and rock art, living heritage that these nations continue to honor. Visitors are asked to treat every site with care and to leave everything as they find it.

The high desert here swings hard between seasons. Spring and fall are the finest times to drive the dugway and explore the mesa, with mild days and long light. Summer is intensely hot and dry on the lowlands, though the mesa top stays cooler. Winter brings cold, snow, and ice that can make the gravel switchbacks treacherous, so the road is best avoided in storms. In every season, this remote country demands preparation and respect.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.