It's 7:30 AM, sunrise. I stand in the parking lot of the Monument Valley Tribal Park Visitors Center, waiting for my Navajo guide. The wind stirs and I zip up my jacket, crunching my boots in a patch of January snow as I step in place to keep warm.

The sun emerges in a burning vermilion ball of light, turning the Valley's dramatic sandstone monoliths a flaming red, and my eyes fall on two of these massive structures