Antelope Canyon, in Lake Powell Navajo Tribal Park, just on the outskirts of Page, Arizona, is easily one of the most beautiful places we have seen. Many of the tours start in Page, and some tour operators will even pick you up from your hotel. Surprisingly, it appears that this place is better known outside the USA than locally. Mention Antelope Canyon, and nobody here in the USA seems to have heard about the place. More than half of the tourists visiting the canyon seem to be foreigners. On August 12, 1997, 11 tourists were killed in the Lower Antelope Canyon in a flash flood. Of these 11, nine were from abroad, and only two were from the USA. But just wait a few more years. The place will be completely overrun by visitors from all over the world.

    In the course of the centuries these slot canyons are carved from the abundant orange-red Navajo sandstone bedrock in the area. Of the many slot canyons in the area, Antelope Canyon is the most well-known, the most visited, and certainly the most photographed. If there were not that many tourists around, this place is both awe-inspiring and tranquil. It is still awe-inspiring today, but not that tranquil anymore. But you can still take beautiful pictures. Antelope Canyon is a photographer’s dream. Take a tripod along, because for best results one should use slow speeds and longer exposures. Set the camera to 100 ISO, high resolution, narrow aspect ratio, white balance to “shade” and color mode to “vivid or warm”.

    These slot canyons are dry most of the time, but sometimes flood water rushes through the canyons, quickly flooding the narrow passages. Wind and water from floods and from rainwater slowly sculpt out the sandstone to give it the beautiful and graceful undulating curves. Depending on the time of day, the brightness of the day, and where you are in the canyon, sunlight gives the walls many different hues.

    There are actually two separate canyons, the Upper Antelope Canyon, also referred to as “The Crack”, and the Lower Antelope Canyon, also known as “The Corkscrew”. They are located about a few miles apart.  Since both canyons are on Navajo land, you can only visit them with an authorized guide. In addition to the tour fees you also have to pay a general admission fee of $6 per person to the Navajo nation to enter the area. Actually, you don’t really need guides to visit the canyons.

    To get to the entrance of the canyons, drive on highway 98 in the direction of the smoke-belching three-stack power plant and you will see signs to the canyons. For the upper canyon, you have to pass a gate, where your admission fee to the Navajo tribal lands is collected. The entrance to the Lower canyon is on the other side of highway 98.

Travels with Hok