You have two days left on your Zion trip and someone in your group just pulled up a photo of the Mittens on their phone. “What if we drove out to Monument Valley?” The question lands like a dare. The answer is not a simple yes or no — it depends entirely on how much driving you are willing to absorb in a single day, and whether your group understands what Monument Valley actually is before you get there.
The Drive: Do the Math Before You Commit
From Springdale, Monument Valley is roughly 2.5 hours each way. The route runs east on Hwy 9 through the Zion-Mt Carmel Tunnel, then south on US-89 through Kanab and Page, Arizona, then east on US-160 and north on US-163 into the valley. The scenery along US-89 and US-163 is legitimately good — you pass through the Vermilion Cliffs corridor and the Colorado Plateau opens up into something vast — but the round trip is 5 hours of driving before you step out of the car at Monument Valley itself.
Five hours of driving leaves you 3 to 4 hours at the destination if you want to be back in Springdale by dark in summer. That is a tight window. Monument Valley’s Valley Drive — the 17-mile self-guided dirt loop through the formations — takes about 2 hours at a relaxed pace. Add the visitor center overlook and a food stop, and a 3-hour window starts to feel compressed rather than satisfying.
What Monument Valley Actually Is
This is the detail that surprises some visitors: Monument Valley is not a National Park. It is a Navajo Nation Tribal Park, administered by the Navajo Nation, and your America the Beautiful pass does not apply here. The entry fee is $20 per vehicle (2026). The park sits on the Arizona-Utah border at roughly 5,500 feet elevation — a hot, open, semi-arid plateau in summer, with almost no shade inside the valley.
The formations themselves are the draw. The West Mitten, East Mitten, and Merrick Butte are the three buttes that appear in roughly half of all American Western film imagery ever made. They are isolated sandstone towers rising 400 to 1,000 feet above the valley floor, and they are genuinely unlike anything inside Zion. Where Zion is a canyon system — you look up from inside a slot — Monument Valley is the inverse: you look outward from a flat plateau at columns rising from it. The geological vocabulary is completely different, and that contrast is part of the argument for going.
The Valley Drive: What to Expect
The 17-mile Valley Drive is a dirt road. It is rough, occasionally washboarded, and has sandy sections that can deepen after summer monsoon storms. Standard passenger cars can usually complete it, but the pace is slow — expect 15 to 20 mph in sections — and low-clearance vehicles or large RVs should check conditions before attempting it. The park’s last entry for the Valley Drive is 2:30 pm, with the drive closing at 5:00 pm. If you are arriving from Zion in the early afternoon, confirm you can reach the entrance by 2:30.
The self-drive road covers the main formations but does not access the interior areas of the valley. Guided Navajo tours — offered by multiple operators based at the visitor center and nearby lodges — go into those restricted zones, including areas around the base of the Mittens and locations that the dirt road bypasses entirely. Tours run roughly 1.5 to 3.5 hours and are worth considering if this is your only visit.
Photography: Where to Stand and When
The classic Mittens shot — both buttes framed symmetrically with the valley floor in the foreground — is taken from the visitor center overlook at the north entrance. That overlook is free to access even without purchasing a Valley Drive ticket. The View Hotel, adjacent to the visitor center, has a terrace with the same vantage point.
The Mittens face roughly east. That means they catch direct golden light at sunrise and are partially shadowed by midday. If you are driving from Zion on a day trip, you will almost certainly arrive mid-morning at the earliest, which means you are photographing the formations in overhead or afternoon light — acceptable, but not ideal. Sunrise at Monument Valley requires an overnight nearby. Kayenta, Arizona (about 25 miles south) and Page, Arizona (about 75 miles northwest) are the two practical overnight bases.
The Honest Day Trip Verdict
As a pure day trip from Zion, Monument Valley is doable but rushed. You will spend more time in the car than at the destination, arrive in suboptimal light, and feel the pull of the drive home before you have fully settled into the place. The valley rewards a slower pace — an early morning on the overlook, the light shifting on the Mittens over 20 minutes, the quiet of the plateau before tour groups arrive.
If you have already done both Zion and Bryce Canyon on this trip, Monument Valley completes a very different chapter. Zion is deep canyon immersion; Bryce is eroded hoodoo amphitheaters; Monument Valley is open-sky butte country. Each one teaches you something different about how water, wind, and sandstone interact over geological time, and seeing all three in a single trip is genuinely worthwhile.
Our recommendation: if Monument Valley is on the list, build in an overnight in Kayenta or Page. That unlocks sunrise on the Mittens, leaves you an unhurried morning in the valley, and positions you to add Antelope Canyon and Lake Powell the following day before driving north. Treated as a standalone day trip from Zion, you will finish the drive home thinking about how it would have been better with one more day. That is the trip telling you something.
Practical Details
- Distance from Springdale: approximately 160 miles one way (2.5 hours)
- Entry fee: $20 per vehicle (Navajo Nation Tribal Park; America the Beautiful pass not accepted)
- Valley Drive: 17 miles, dirt road, last entry 2:30 pm, closes 5:00 pm
- High-clearance vehicle: recommended; RVs and low-clearance cars should check conditions
- Guided tours: available on-site from Navajo-operated tour companies; 1.5 to 3.5 hours; access restricted interior areas not on the self-drive road
- Best light: sunrise (east-facing formations); plan an overnight in Kayenta or Page if photography is a priority
- What to bring: water for the full day (limited services inside the valley), sun protection; summer temperatures regularly exceed 95°F on the plateau
- Nearest overnight bases: Kayenta, AZ (25 miles south); Page, AZ (75 miles northwest via US-160 west)
For context on road conditions before you leave Springdale, the Navajo Nation Parks site posts updates at navajonationparks.org. Our Beyond Zion guides cover Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, and Antelope Canyon if you are building out a multi-park itinerary around this region.
