Lower Antelope Slot Canyon, Page, Arizona

Four years ago, Mrs Bear and I visited Page on our two-month retirement cross country road trip. However, our flexibility to do everything we wanted was affected by Mrs Bear’s broken leg in Sitka. So we recently made a return trip to Page to see the Antelope Slot Canyon. As you can see from the above photo, Mrs Bear healed up, and has been banned from mountain bicycles…

I am not an expert on Page’s slot canyons, but on our first trip, we did a boat tour of slot canyons submerged in Lake Powell … These canyons were very deep and narrow, and snaked out from the boundaries of the lake’s main body. The Lower Antelope Slot Canyon is a five mile on-road and a three mile off-road drive from the lake. But it still is largely affected by rainfall, and drains into Lake Powell. Below is the entry to the canyon.

This canyon is within the Navajo Indian Reservation. To visit requires reserving a tour with a Navajo company with an accompanying guide. Personally, I see this as a good thing … our guide showed us evidence of graffiti, dating back to before this tour requirement began. There were pock marks from people shooting guns into the canyon walls. Also, these tours provide employment for the Navajo people. Our guide told us that he drives 100 miles to lead these tours!!!

Another good result from the tour was our guide taking photos for us at various points. He was much more skilled and knowledgeable … the first of the four photos above was taken by me … not bad and I had a good model. Our guide took the other three … I have no idea how he brought out all the color!! I think it was a combination of the natural light and camera effects.

Hopefully you can see that this tour is a must if you visit Page or Lake Powell. Walking out, we climbed up a series of steep steps which took us to the height of the canyon:

Our guide told us of a party that was warned not to enter the canyon on a day of rain. 10 of the 12 drowned … the other two were able to rise with the water to the opening you see in the photo and were pulled out.

This is an amazing area. The snow in the distance above Bryce Canyon. Monument Valley is about 80 miles west ( right as you look at the picture above). And a few miles away is the Horseshoe Bend of the Colorado River. I shot the first photo below with my Pano setting

And finally, a photo of a butte near Lake Powell … Mrs Bear and I landed on top via helicopter on our first visit. Those photos can be seen in earlier blog posts.