Mexican Hat, Utah

Where it sits. Mexican Hat is a scatter of buildings on the San Juan River in south-central San Juan County, Utah, at the northern edge of the Navajo Nation. The census counts its population in the tens, not the thousands. It exists because U.S. 163 has to cross the river somewhere, and because the surrounding country - the Goosenecks, Cedar Mesa, Valley of the Gods and Monument Valley - has nothing else resembling a service centre. The settlement takes its name from a sombrero-shaped rock north of town: a disc of sandstone roughly 20 m across balanced on a slender neck, visible from the highway without leaving the tarmac.

The story behind it. The site was a river crossing long before it was a village. Prospectors worked the San Juan for placer gold in the 1890s with almost no success, and an oil boom in the 1900s produced a few wells and a great deal of disappointment. What lasted was the road. The bridge over the San Juan made Mexican Hat the hinge between the Utah canyon country to the north and the Navajo Nation to the south, and its motels, cafes and river-runner outfits have served that traffic ever since. Norman Nevills, one of the pioneers of commercial river running, based his San Juan expeditions here in the 1930s and 1940s, launching wooden cataract boats that ran down to Lees Ferry.

On screen. The stretch of U.S. 163 that leaves Mexican Hat to the south-west is one of the most photographed roads in the world, and almost nobody who photographs it knows the town's name. About 21 km from the settlement, near milepost 13, the highway crests a rise and runs dead straight toward the buttes of Monument Valley. This is where Robert Zemeckis's crew filmed Forrest Gump's abrupt halt near the end of his three-year run in the 1994 film - the moment he stops, turns and tells the crowd behind him that he is tired and going home. The spot has been informally known as Forrest Gump Point ever since. The dedicated running unit that shot those sequences spent roughly a fortnight in 1993 covering ground across several states; this was the frame that stuck.

What you actually see today. The village is four or five buildings deep: a couple of motels, a restaurant or two, a filling station and a trading post, most of them strung along the highway above the river. The Mexican Hat rock itself is a short drive north on U.S. 163 and then a rough side track east. South-west of town, the highway climbs onto the plain where the Monument Valley view opens up. Standing in the middle of the carriageway for a photograph is a genuine hazard - this is a 105 km/h highway with rises that hide approaching vehicles, and there is a wide shoulder on both sides that works just as well. Nine kilometres north-west, the Goosenecks of the San Juan State Park overlook shows the river coiled into three entrenched meanders 300 m below the rim; the Moki Dugway, a set of unpaved switchbacks climbing 340 m onto Cedar Mesa, begins a little further on.

Practical notes. Services here are thin and expensive by regional standards. Fuel is available but not around the clock, mobile coverage is patchy to non-existent once you leave the highway, and the nearest supermarket is in Blanding, roughly 80 km north. Rooms in the two or three motels sell out completely in spring and autumn because the alternative bases - Bluff, Kayenta and Goulding's - do too. The Navajo Nation boundary is immediately south of the river, which means the alcohol prohibition and the tribe's own permit rules apply the moment you cross it.

Getting there and timing. Bluff lies 40 km north-east, Monument Valley's tribal park entrance about 35 km south-west, Blanding 80 km north and Moab a little under 250 km. There is no public transport of any kind; this is car country, and the nearest commercial airports are Page, Farmington and Flagstaff, all several hours away. Spring and autumn are the workable seasons: April to May and September to October give warm days, cold nights and stable light. Summer is severe, with river-level temperatures pushing past 38C and monsoon cells rolling through from July to early September. Winter is cold, empty and clear. For the Monument Valley view from the highway, late afternoon puts the sun behind the buttes and the road in shadow; morning gives cleaner colour on the rock.