Antelope Canyon

We left Mather Campground on a cold Tuesday morning but with breaks to the blue as we headed east. As the weather continued to improve I decided that it was worth trying to get a tour of the Antelope Slot Canyon. The Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons are on Navajo land and you can only access them with a Navajo guide. Touring Lower Canyon involves climbing tall ladders and squeezing through tight openings so the Upper which only involves walking through the level Canyon sounded more suitable. Arriving in Page at about 11:30am we parked at the Safeway and walked over to one of the Navajo tour outfitters for the Antelope Slot Canyon. They were booked until their 3:00pm tour but suggested we could drive out Hwy 98 to the Canyon entrance and get on a 12:00 or 1:00 tour. It was only a ten or 15 minute drive but by the time we arrived, paid our $16 daypass for the Navajo territory, we were lucky to talk our way onto the list for the 1:00 tour.

 

 

When the time came we were divided into groups of 14 with a guide, ours was named Laurie, and we were loaded onto the back of a pickup truck with benches and a canvas roof for shade and driven 3 miles over the sand bumping and swaying along. The slot canyons are majestic and narrow passages carved through the Navajo sandstone by wind and water. Shafts of sunlight shine and bounce down from above the canyon walls casting shadows on the graceful curves and sharp edges in the rock. The Navajo have named some of the shapes for the images they conjure, the bear, the coyote, the wave, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, the heart and Laurie patiently pointed these out as well as advising which camera setting worked best for each type of camera for capturing the special colours of the canyon.

When we emerged at the end of the canyon Laurie pointed up to a young owl

that had been sitting vigil over the opening since the previous day. They feared that it had been in contact with some of the tourists and had now been abandoned by its mothers.

The tour lasted about an hour and a half and while the canyon was crowded (there must have been over 200 people on a 1:00 tour for the three different tour operators who had to wait patiently to file single file through the narrow canyon) and it was sometimes difficult to get a good picture without someone’s head getting in the way, it was still a magical place and I was very pleased that the timing (and the weather) had worked out so we could do this.

It was about 4:00pm when we arrived at our lovely large, lake view site at Wahweap Campground at Lake Powell Resorts.

This was probably the nicest private campground we have stayed at. The fee for the campground also includes access to the pool, spa, and business centre at the resort but our priority after shower and dinner was laundry.  Just as we drove down to the service area that held the laundry it started to rain, the wind (which had whipped up in the late afternoon) intensified and some the sky was filled with thunder and lightning. Pete rushed back to rescue the picnic shelter, chairs, and cushions while I waited for a turn at the machines and took advantage of the wifi to update the blog and check email. It was close to 9:30pm by the time the drying was done and we could settle in for the night.