Ever heard of a slot canyon? When I was about a year out of high school, I worked for a troubled youth program where the kids were sent to survive out on the desert for 6 weeks. I spent practically the whole summer hiking around the Escalante, Utah area and I absolutely fell in love with the landscape including slot canyons. When we moved down to Arizona in May, I got homesick for slot canyons. I wanted to take my kids to where I had hiked and let them experience what I had experienced. Well, I knew the hikes we had done were way too hard for my little guys, so I started researching slot canyons that we could do with them. I found Antelope Canyon. You've probably seen pictures of the canyon, supposedly it's the most photographed slot canyon in the world, and maybe you've even heard about the 11 hikers that were washed away in the canyon back in 1997. But, if you've never been in a slot canyon, it's definitely something you might want to try to experience. They are quite awesome. We hiked Upper Antelope Canyon which is a simple maybe 20 minute walk through the winding hovering walls. All of my pictures are from the upper canyon. Lower Antelope Canyon (where the hikers were washed away) starts as a crack in the desert sand and descends down into the deep walls. I included some interesting pictures I found on the internet of Lower Antelope Canyon. I wanted you to see how it opens up and what it looks like when there is a flash flood roaring down it, but we haven't hike that one ourselves ... yet.
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| Entrance to Upper Antelope Canyon |
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| Heading in with our tour guide |
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| Our tour guide played his Navajo flute for us in the canyon. The Navajos own the land and the canyon. |
The following pictures are ones I pulled off the internet showing the Lower Antelope Canyon entrance. If you want to read more about Antelope Canyon, just Google it or look it up on Youtube. It's quite fascinating!
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| Entrance to Lower Antelope Canyon. You descend right there in that crack. (Photo taken by Monika http://scientika.blogspot.com/2010/06/lower-antelope-canyon.html) |
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| Entrance to Lower Antelope Canyon during a flash flood. Crazy! This is exactly how these canyons are made. (Photo taken by JD Rose, http://photo.net/nature-photography-forum/00FmEu) | | |
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| After the canyon tour, we drove a few miles to Lake Powell. We spent an hour or so playing in the lake. This is the third time I've been to Lake Powell, only one of which I had access to a boat. It seems I'm always playing in the lake from the shore. |
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| You know baby is happy if his tongue is out. His happy trademark. |
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| We did the whole trip in a day which equaled about 10 hours of driving. We decided to make it a day trip instead of an overnight camping trip. Whew! |
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