ANTELOPE CANYON

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It’s still raining early this morning but the weather forecast said it would stop and be sunny today for my Antelope Canyon tour. And the weatherman is never wrong, right?

The weatherman was right on - what a superb day for hiking the Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons. The native guides were really helpful giving us pointers on which settings to use down in the canyons to make our pictures sooo much more colourful. I took literally hundreds of photos that you may or may not want to suffer through once I am able to upload them. While I was waiting for the tour pickup at the Clarion Hotel in Page, I took advantage of their wifi to upload all the pics on my phone from the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert.

At the Lower Antelope Canyon, we descend 74 steps down a metal staircase to the bottom and then hike gradually upwards through the canyon using ladders and steep staircases to get us to the exit. The beginning of the Upper Antelope Canyon is an easy hike and goes for approximately 1 mile through all the chambers, twists and turns emerging on the other side. The upper canyon is much deeper and therefore colder than the lower. It is also darker because it is early in the spring so the sun, being lower in the sky, doesn’t shine down into the bottom yet. After the exit of the lower canyon there is an incline up and around the canyon, descending 150 steps back to the beginning of the canyon where the trucks take us back to the park entrance.

I cannot ever describe what it is like in these canyons. The wind, water and earth have shaped and formed these canyons for millions of years. Every year the floods roar and swirl through the canyons changing them yet again. Because sandstone is relatively soft, the water and wind have swirled the walls into unbelievable waves, waterfalls and ridges. Every one of the photos I took are real (if you ever get to see them). I may stop at a fast food place and take advantage of their free wifi to upload pics.

There was sand sifting down from the top of the canyons in light drifting falls. I have sand everywhere inside my clothing! But it looks very pretty in the pictures. I am not going to do a lengthy blog today trying to describe the canyons, mostly because I can’t begin to ever come close to describing the feeling of experiencing a natural phenomena that is so awesome and mind boggling.

So this is my blog for today, short and sweet, minus photos from the canyons.

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Photos

Monday morning as I was leaving Holbrook
This was nothing compared to the blizzard as I went over the mountain.