Stagecoach

Stagecoach is a prominent six thousand three hundred two-foot summit in Monument Valley on Navajo Nation land in southeastern Utah, visible from Highway one hundred sixty-three and rising about nine hundred feet above the desert floor. Named for its resemblance to a stagecoach, it is one of the valley’s distinctive buttes and mesas, with runoff draining to the San Juan River basin. Its recorded first ascent came in nineteen ninety-five when John Middendorf, Carl Tobin, and Dan Langmade reached the top. The butte’s steep form reflects two Permian rock layers: softer Organ Rock Shale below and more resistant De Chelly Sandstone above, a pattern central to Monument Valley’s landscape.

Utah · United States