Antelope Canyon

Interesting facts

In Navajo, Upper Antelope Canyon is Tsé bighánílíní, the place where water runs through rocks, and Lower Antelope is Hazdistazí, the spiral rock arches.

The English name comes from the herds of pronghorn that once roamed freely in and around the canyon.

The area actually contains six separate slot canyon sections: Upper Antelope (The Crack), Rattlesnake, Owl, Mountain Sheep, Canyon X and Lower Antelope (The Corkscrew).

Upper Antelope is A-shaped, wider at the bottom than the top, while Lower Antelope is a narrow V-shaped slot reached by several flights of stairs.

Below Lower Antelope the canyon floor sinks beneath the waters of Lake Powell, so its flooded reaches can be explored by kayak or paddleboard.

Light bouncing between the walls produces a contrast range of ten photographic stops or more, which makes the canyon notoriously difficult to photograph.

In 2014 the photographer Peter Lik announced a private sale of his black-and-white Antelope Canyon image Phantom for a reported 6.5 million dollars, a claimed record.

The 1997 flood swept away the amateur-built wooden ladders then used in Lower Antelope; they were replaced by ladders bolted into the rock.

The Navajo Nation set the area aside as part of the Lake Powell Navajo Tribal Park, which also includes a hiking trail to Rainbow Bridge.

Why it is worth it

The same force that makes Antelope Canyon beautiful is the one that makes it dangerous. Flash floods have been carving this slot into the Navajo sandstone — itself nearly 190-million-year-old fossilized dune fields from the Jurassic — for something like 5 to 6 million years, grinding the passageway narrower and smoothing its walls into the flowing, wave-like curves that show up in every photograph.

That history turned tragic in August 1997, when a flash flood triggered by a storm many miles away — one that hikers already inside the canyon never saw coming — swept through Lower Antelope Canyon and killed eleven people. It remains the deadliest event in the canyon's recent history, and it directly changed how the place operates today: the Navajo Nation, which owns and manages the canyon within the LeChee Chapter, tightened access afterward so that no one enters without an authorized guide, a permit, and awareness of weather conditions upstream.

For the Navajo people the canyon was never just scenery. Guides who lead tours through it also carry stories tied to the place — its winds, its light, the sense of a living, breathing landform — that predate the crowds by generations and are worth listening to as more than commentary.

Good to know

Entry is only possible on a guided tour booked through a Navajo-authorized operator; there's no independent or unguided access.

Best time to visit

The vertical light beams that made Antelope Canyon famous appear only around midday (roughly 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.) on clear days, and only from late March through early October. June and July give the strongest, most vertical beams because the sun sits highest, but also the biggest crowds and the harshest heat; late March–May and September–October are milder with visibly weaker but still striking beams.

Getting there

186 km from Flagstaff. Page Municipal Airport (PGA) is about 10 km away.

From the encyclopaedia

Navajo Upper Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon in the American Southwest, on Navajo land east of Lechee, Arizona. It includes six separate, scenic slot canyon sections on the Navajo Reservation, referred to as Upper Antelope Canyon, Rattle Snake Canyon, Owl Canyon, Mountain Sheep Canyon, Canyon X and Lower Antelope Canyon. It is the primary attraction of Lake Powell Navajo Tribal Park, along with a hiking trail to Rainbow Bridge National Monument.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0