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<\/h2>\nPlateaux, hillocks and spires of red sandstone rise up from an endless plain, streaking the horizon with their baroque plasticity. All of this drenched by a sun whose rays are constantly changing the shadows, altering the colours and distorting the masses... It's an understatement to say that the majestic Monument Valley is imposing in its ruggedness and austerity. It's easy to see why the masters of the Western made it their favourite location: this primitive beauty is an ideal symbol of the perilous road of the Far West. Its strangeness epitomises the daring that is essential for anyone wishing to reach the presumed Eden, the unsettled territories west of the Mississippi, where the Plains Indians were exiled in the early 19th century. Just one regret: the visitors are wearing baseball caps rather than the Stetson that should be compulsory! It is, of course, John Wayne that we meet in Monument Valley, the stagecoach from Fantastic Ride on its way to New Mexico with its passengers: the whisky salesman, the promiscuous girl, the gambler, the crooked banker, the sheriff and the vigilante outlaw... In short, a vision of American society in the pioneer era threatened, as it should be, by Indians determined to take up the warpath.<\/p>\n
Groups inevitably experience the sensation of walking through the screen,\" comments Mary Rittmann, Marketing Director at the Arizona Tourist Board. They are 'in' the film. And that's true whether you offer them a 4\u00d74 rally or an excursion on horseback along the 27 kilometres of trails that wind through the park's 12,000 hectares. What's more, the guides are Navajos, because this is their territory. Their grandparents were extras in cult films, playing Cheyenne, Comanche, Apache or Sioux, depending on the film. Fewer films have told the story of the Navajo as it actually happened, the dark scenario of a people mistreated by the Spanish colonists, then despoiled, deported, starved or massacred by the assaults of the US Army and Kit Carson. John Ford, whose films made Monument Valley popular the world over, is graced with a viewpoint bearing his name, as well as the setting for the famous Marlboro advertising campaigns based on cowboy mythology. Monument Valley, where the cameras of Clint Eastwood, Stanley Kubrick, Spielberg, Sergio Leone and many others have been set, also takes its visitors back to the earliest ages of the Earth. The result of successive geological processes spanning hundreds of millennia, it is the child of plate tectonics, volcanic activity, wind erosion, rain, frost and, of course, the sea that covered the region 400 million years ago, when Europe and North America formed a single continent... The golden age of the Western and continental drift are inevitably the topics of conversation at Goulding's Lodge, the illustrious local hotel-restaurant whose menu proudly features John Wayne-style chicken, a hearty roast chicken and mash, a reminder that the place was the headquarters of the Duke and his director John Ford.<\/p>\n
For the Indians, somewhat caricatured by the cinema, Monument Valley is above all a work of the gods, another way of paying homage to the genius of the place and the extraordinary nature of its concretions exuding sacredness, a frontier between two worlds that the novelist Willa Cather evokes as follows: \"Elsewhere, the sky is the roof of the world; here, the earth is the floor of the sky\".<\/p>\n
For incentive operations, the Valley's geographical location plays a key role in creating the feeling of an out-of-the-ordinary trip. In the north-east of Arizona and on the edge of Utah, guests find themselves in the middle of nowhere. Phoenix, the state capital, lies 420km to the south and the neon lights of Las Vegas are more than 600km to the west, in neighbouring Nevada. For Frenchies accustomed to landscapes punctuated by farms and church steeples, the trip also offers the experience of the wilderness combined with that of a road trip, a journey through space and time with country tones, but also deeply bluesy...<\/p>\n
<\/h2>\nIf the pioneers had their share of hard times, what about the fate of the Indians? Everyone knows that they were dispossessed of our lands, but we often ignore the fact that their very identity was stolen from them,\" points out Shaliyah Ben, of Navajo origin and member of the education department at the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Apache means 'enemy', Pima means 'I don't know', in other words 'fool'... As for the Navajos, they are the 'cutthroats'! Whether these insulting names should be retained is a matter of debate among the tribes. In this desert region of tortured rock represented by the geological entity known as the Colorado Plateau, which straddles four states (Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona), the road from Monument Valley to the Grand Canyon also passes through nowhere. Edward Abbey (1927-1989), a magnificent writer and connoisseur of every nook and cranny of every mesa in the area (he was a national park ranger), described the area as \"the land of nada, the kingdom of nihilo\". He continued: \"But this is positive nothingness, nothingness rich in time, space, silence, light, darkness; rich in the fullness of pure being.\" At the Grand Canyon, the other centrepiece of Arizona's Wild West, the earth takes on the colours of buffalo hide. For incentive trips, which bring together a wealth of experiences over a short period of time, the helicopter is the only way to appreciate the gigantic scale of the site. At the foot of peaks of up to 2,000 metres, this labyrinth of canyons stretches over 5,000 km2, the equivalent of the Bouches-du-Rh\u00f4ne d\u00e9partement. Nothing could be simpler than to privatise these flights. Papillon, the main company that operates them, offers a choice of extensions combined with 4\u00d74s to reach viewpoints reserved for experienced hikers, or to have lunch on the base of the canyon, whose sediments are sometimes 1.7 billion years old. On this scale, the dinosaurs that lived here around 200 million years ago seem to have been born yesterday.<\/p>\n
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<\/h2>\nHeading south towards Phoenix, the peaceful town of Flagstaff rekindles a more contemporary history. On the edge of the San Francisco Peaks, a volcanic chain of snow-capped peaks rising to 3,800 m, Flagstaff, at an altitude of 2,000 m, first grew with the arrival of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, which united Missouri and California in the 1880s. Fifty years later, its growth redoubled with the creation of a new route, this time for cars: a 4,000 km ribbon of tarmac linking Chicago (Illinois) to Santa Monica (California) and christened... Route 66.<\/p>\n
Get your kicks on road 66 sang Nat King Cole, Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones and many others. Flagstaff is proud to be mentioned in the song. The Mother Road, the country's first paved transcontinental highway, embodies the modern face of the conquest of the West. Combining dynamism and freedom, its symbolism supports the image of the car industry of the time, shaping the icon of the American belle, a streamlined motorised individual coach, embellished with leather and clad in chrome. These flashy eight- and even twelve-cylinder coaches are still a common sight in Flagstaff and Williams. Studbacker, De Soto, Packard... these brontosaurs can be seen carelessly parked in front of the various witnesses to the road, mainly service stations, motels and restaurants that are relics of the \"thirty glorious years\". And who cares if the 66, deserted and dethroned by the motorway for more than thirty years, has been reclassified as a \"historic road\"! In Arizona, where its sections are the best preserved, it continues to inspire dreams. In the spring of 2009, Renault Trucks won the hearts and minds of the public by driving three Renault Magnums, its top-of-the-range model, along the entire length of this legendary road. This prestigious incentive, designed by the events agency Yves Hunt (Awak'iT group) and operated by the incoming agency Native Destinations, was widely covered by the media and won several awards. Route 66 is the theme of many incentives,\" says the Flagstaff tourist office. \"It's the ultimate mythical road, the Main Street of America, which still conveys the very positive values of its heyday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The road to Sedona passes through the Coconino National Forest, a vast estate planted with immense ponderosa pines, the tree of the West from whose trunks pioneers dug canoes. The route continues along the Oak Creek Gorge, a paradise for trout fishermen and children with its natural waterslides. Sedona: 11,000 inhabitants in the off-peak season, but over 3 million visitors in summer. What attracts the crowds here is first and foremost the landscape, a concentrate of Monument Valley with the added bonus of trees and a temperate climate (we're at an altitude of 1,500 m), combined with the 'arty' atmosphere exuded by its swarm of contemporary, Native American and Western art galleries, as it was here that the Cowboy Artists of America association was founded. Beyond that, the city's fame is also due in no small part to its energy vortexes, a phenomenon of magnetic fields with multiple benefits, according to their zealots: \"Raising the level of consciousness, freeing the emotions and facilitating inter-dimensional communication\". The New York Times suggested that one in ten people here believed in aliens. In short, Sedona is a mecca for the new-age movement, which means it's full of shops selling all sorts of grigris to overcome illness, refocus your chakras or communicate with the Beyond. The Mystical bazaar, for example, is equipped to draw a portrait of the aura of visitors, a traditional photo, but cloaked in a halo of fluorescent colours to be interpreted with a 23-page booklet, \"an invaluable guide to self-knowledge\". Cartomancers, palmists, ayurvedic masseurs, gurus and shamans abound in the area, and the local tour companies have all included a scenic vortex tour by jeep in their catalogues. Skeptics will also want to check out the astonishing Chapel of the Holy Cross, a contemporary concrete structure with a glass wall that opens out over the valley like an immense altarpiece, and the exceptional sites of this red earth region that groups can also fly over in a hot-air balloon, the setting for dozens of westerns, masterpieces such as Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar, flops such as Stay away Joe (but with Elvis Presley) and a most dubious curiosity: the first Nazi western, and the only one of its kind to have been made in the United States (Luis Trenker's The Emperor of California, 1936).<\/p>\n
Just 160km to the south lies Phoenix. Arizona's capital stretches across a valley that, with its neighbouring towns of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa and Glendale, forms one of the country's largest conurbations, a symbol of the New West and of the urban sprawl that is increasingly criticised in the United States in the name of sustainable development. The phenomenon is due to the region's significant demographic growth, a consequence of the attraction that \"the valley of the sun\" has for its quality of life and sunshine of more than 300 days a year. Phoenix's assets, which include a high-performance convention centre, include a large number of golf courses (over 200), as well as boutiques, spas, hotels and luxury resorts that make up the luxury and relaxation stage of an Old West holiday in Arizona. It is also the cultural stop-off point with its many museums, including the Heard Museum, which presents a complete panorama of the Native American art of the tribes of the South West (Hopi, Navajo, Apache and Zuni) in the setting of a superb colonial mansion that can be privatised.<\/p>\n
Architecture fans will also be delighted by a visit to Taliesin West, the private home built in Scottsdale by architect Franck Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) (see practical guide). Finally, the town's location is obviously one of its major attractions, as it lies on the edge of the Sonoran Desert, whose cacti are the icon of the Wild West. We're surrounded by national parks, so nature is still very much present,\" notes David Bernand, manager of the Four Seasons Scottsdale. This allows groups to enjoy a wide range of outdoor activities - golf, hiking, cycling, kayaking - as well as observing the desert's flora and fauna or the stars, as we have one of the purest skies in the world; a paradise for astronomers.\"<\/p>\n
Sonora stretches over 320,000 km2 between southern California, Mexico and Arizona, with its rugged, stony terrain dotted with bushes and dotted as far as the eye can see with the famous Saguaro cactus. This giant, which can grow up to 15 metres high, only grows here under the scorching sun, waiting for the rare rains whose roots catch every last drop. It can absorb up to 800 litres of water with each rainfall. This model of thrift is mirrored by the local flora and fauna that can be discovered at the Sonora Desert Museum, a fascinating natural history museum that is mainly open-air, but also a botanical garden and zoo where you can meet some of the most charming creatures around: wolves and pumas, scorpions, black widow spiders and other rattlesnakes. The lounging coyotes take visitors back to the mythology of the West that transpires around Tucson, 170 km south of Phoenix.<\/p>\n
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A former Mexican colony that became American in 1853, the region has also played its part in the Western legend. From 1939 onwards, when the Old Tucson studios were set up on the initiative of Columbia, it became a major location for the filming of Westerns. Elite directors such as Anthony Mann, Howard Hawks and John Huston all worked at the studio, where more than 300 films were made... Nowadays, the Old Tucson Studios is divided between film-making and welcoming visitors, and has taken on the appearance of a Western theme park. The stagecoach rides are punctuated by scenographic settlements of scores between the blacksmith's shop, the sheriff's office, the jail, the bank and the saloon. This venue, which can be privatised, can be used by even large groups (capacity 1,500 people) as the setting for a themed evening that is sure to bring participants back to their childhood,\" explains Kimberly Schmitz, Communications Director of the Metropolitan Tucson Convention Bureau.<\/p>\n
Then it's on to the many ghost towns of this southern part of Arizona to discover the other side of the coin, the authentic touch. Pearce, Glenson, Dos Cabezas and other ramshackle towns all tell the same story, that of lightning growth around a vein of gold, silver, lead or coal, followed by an equally brutal sinking at the first signs of its exhaustion: \"boom and bust\", the cycle of the pioneering economy impatient to take advantage of the resources of the New World.<\/p>\n
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