Road trip to the Mid-West! Part 2: Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend.

This post is all about Arizona! After our lovely day and a half  (not enough time) in Bryce Canyon National Park our next destination was Page, Arizona! It was a couple hours away from Utah. The two main attractions we were checking out were situated in Navajo Land. They were two slot canyons: Upper Antelope Canyon and Lower Antelope Canyon. Another attraction we were headed for was Horseshoe Bend. All three are very close to each other in proximity. If you are planning a trip to see one of these beautiful canyons I suggest you make time to see both and definitely make time to see Horseshoe Bend. To see the canyons we needed to pay a fee to the Navajo Nation as well as an entrance fee for each canyon. They both required guided tours. Horseshoe Bend was free.

UPPER ANTELOPE CANYON

The first canyon we visited was Upper Antelope Canyon. It is said that out of the two Upper Antelope Canyon is the more popular one to visit. It's popularity is due to a beautiful feature of light beams that illuminate the dark passageways during a specific time in the summer. Though we missed what would have been a magical sight it was still breathtaking in the fall and less densely packed with tourists. It was a nice trade off to have the canyon a little bit more to ourselves.

To access the canyon we were driven to it's location by the tour guide in a bumpy open top truck that seated up to 8 people in the back. The short ride took us through a dry river bed. The entrance to the canyon was a dark wide opening. There are several tour companies you can go with for Upper Antelope Canyon and I didn't know which one we went with. From the ratings they all appeared to offer a similar tour.  Our tour guide (Shelly) gave us tips on how to change our camera settings so that we could take the best pictures in the dim light. She also showed us some good picture ops. Basically all the pictures I took of Upper Antelope Canyon were guided by her and look very nice. With all her experience she was basically a professional photographer. She was an extremely no non-sense guide and tended to be a bit on the bossy side when it came to photos and timeliness. At times it felt like she was ushering a herd but it was still a mostly pleasant experience.

 Inside, the canyon seemed like an alien landscape. It had smooth surfaces all throughout. You could see and feel the striations and horizontal lines that stretch all the way through it. The floor was covered in a soft layer of sand. Though it was filled with tourist it still seemed somehow untouched. It also felt ancient as though it held many secrets. The temperature within was cool but not cold. Each time you turned a corner there was a breathe taking view ahead. Even more so, if you look up towards the ceiling of the canyon you would see  peaks of the bright sky. It is a truly still and beautiful environment. The tour guide led us through the passage and when we got to the other side we were given permission to come back through individually rather than sticking together as a group. It isn't a very long canyon. You could probably walk through in and out within 20 minutes if you didn't stop every minute to take pictures. If I were to rate it Upper Antelope Canyon would be considered a very accessible canyon. It doesn't require any climbing to enter or exit. It's relatively flat, wide and easy to navigate. Anyone could easily trek through this canyon. Being inside a slot canyon is something everyone should experience at least once in their lives.

Here are just some photos of Upper Antelope Canyon.

The shape of my heart. What a magical sight to see. Because the canyon was carved

with so many smooth surfaces, nooks and crannies every angle of the same structure could

look completely different. At one angle, this heart looks whole. At another, this heart was broken.

 The curvature of the walls and the horizontal striations showed the 

power of water cutting into rock and creating this amazing environment.

The ceiling was something I kept looking for 

because each time I looked up I saw a different view of the sky and the sunlight

would light up the rocks up with red glow just like that.

LOWER ANTELOPE CANYON

 Lower Antelope Canyon was our second stop. I didn't know too much about this canyon and we were debating whether or not we wanted to pay an extra $25 dollars just to see some more rocks. We didn't take long to decide YES! It's just $25!!! and you only live once! Why not? We didn't know what to expect but we were all probably expecting less as this was deemed the less popular canyon.
The guide book said that "Ken's Tour's" was the best so we went with that. To be honest, the tour itself was not astounding as our tour guide merely took us into the canyon and didn't do much else. He did help with taking photos but he did not talk a whole lot. In comparison to Upper Antelope Canyon I felt that I wasn't really given a tour but more of an entrance but at least there was not herd prodding. Between the two, I enjoyed the Lower Antelope Canyon tour much more because we had more freedom to roam the canyon. It was less busy too so it felt like we had the whole canyon to ourselves to run around.

The Lower Antelope Canyon was surprisingly fun and different even though it is another slot canyon very similar to Upper. To start off, Lower Antelope Canyon is probably called that because it's much deeper. To get into it you must go down several flights of steep metal stairs. Though it could be unsettling to think of it, those stairs used to be made of wood until a group of tourists and the structures that were used in the canyon (all made out of wood) were swept away and destroyed during a flash flood not too long ago. Hence, all structures were rebuilt and made out of metal for sturdiness. There are also some narrow passages, whereas the upper was mostly wide passages, and some more stairs and ladders to get out.  In comparison, the terrain is slightly more challenging to navigate. I loved this aspect of the Lower as it made the journey more adventurous and fun but it may not be for everyone. There is also a lot more light in this canyon even though it appears deeper. You can see and take in a lot more with the eyes! The walls, though similar to that of the Upper canyon, were sometimes speckled with round protrusions. Our guide told us it was calcium. There also some dark round circles in the stone, those, he said, were iron spots. These were just the slight differences between the two canyons. According to the guide, the canyon was discovered by Ken himself about 35 years ago. Upper Antelope Canyon was discovered a bit earlier than that by our tour guide's grandmother when she was a little girl. I liked those little facts...

 Stairs...

 Ceiling of Lower Antelope Canyon. Yet again a dance of light and rock. 

See the 3 iron spots right above. 

 It's much brighter here as you can see. And empty... all for me.

At moments I was all alone in sections of the passageways and it was a beautiful,

peaceful quiet that you rarely get to experience. 

 Unlike the opening of the Upper Antelope Canyon, the Lower Antelope Canyon's entrance and exit looks like a fissure in the vast desert like landscape of Navajo Land. This was the exit. 

HORSESHOE BEND

Our last stop in this trio adventures day was Horseshoe Bend. I don't know what the Horseshoe Bend actually is aside from the fact that it is a body of water that encircles a tall mound in the middle of nowhere surrounded by more rocky mounds and a desert landscape. The area we were in was far and wide and from the starting point of our short hike (in sand for some parts) all we could see was flattened sedimentary rocks and shrubs. We were surrounded by arid land. Then as we walked deeper into this landscape we saw a large, dark, gaping pit-like area and there was the Horseshoe Bend. 

From the pit, we were already pretty high looking down at this wonder. The water was bright green-blue. It's was just a beautiful scene because the weather was amazingly gorgeous that day. The sky was as sky blue as you could imagine and there was not a cloud in sight. The sun was out and blazing hot. Horseshoe Bend appeared like an oasis out of nowhere. It was massive, but so was the land so it was hard to get the whole thing in a photo. There was a mound not too far from this gaping hole that appeared climbable so we explored it to get a better view. The climb itself was a fun adventure as there was no obvious path. There were some inukshuks left around, maybe from someone trying to leave directions for those that came after him. Every time I saw one of them I was a bit more confident that it was the safest way to go. It was a nice little hike up and a rewarding view.

By the gaping hole trying not to get to close to the edge. Posters

at the parking lot warned visitors not too get too close as the edge of the cliffs

are extremely unstable and could crumble! My heart was beating a little. 

 From the top! This is a panoramic view of the Horseshoe Bend. It is deep! To the left,

there is a little cliff sticking out with an inukshuk standing near the edge.There were speed boats in the water that day!

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The trusty inukshuk waiting for us at the top. See the gaping hole.

Our next and final stop would be the Grand Canyon and I'll update that another day! Part 3 awaits!