Ken seems to have the sole franchise on this canyon. At the parking lot north of Highway 98 there is a booth where you pay your $6 entrance and $20 tour fees. Guided tours are about an hour long each. But instead of going with the tour you can also opt for the photography pass, which gives you up to 4 hours to stay in the canyon, but which will not give you the rambling insights of a tour guide.

    We were glad we made that choice, because soon after us came a tour with the guide lugging a guitar. Well, he wasn’t Jimi Hendrix for sure, and after a while it was obvious he had a very limited repertory and was replaying his melody-challenged melodies over and over again. We tried to stay away as far as possible from this group. You can enjoy the canyon better if it is quiet, so you can hear the gods and the winds whispering to you. The sun was blazing hot outside, but it was nice and cool in the canyon.

    We came at around 10 a.m., but the light is better if we would have come earlier, at  maybe 8 a.m. The sun gets overhead as the day progresses and the direct light into the canyon leads to hard contrasts, which makes it more difficult to make good pictures.

top: The entrance to the Lower Antelope Canyon is just a cleft in the dark brown-red sandstone.

left above: But inside the canyon the colors become muted and spectacular.

right: Trying to find the right angle to make the shot of the century makes for an interesting picture by itself.