ANTELOPE SLOT CANYON

Entrance
Slot canyon, just the name of it is intriguing. A narrow crevice cut through rock, by water and wind over thousands of years.
I had seen pictures and wanted more information.
Slot canyon, corkscrew, petrified sand dunes, my imagination ran wild.
Limitations to go to see the canyon just added to the mystery. On Navajo Indian land in Page, Arizona, accessible only with a guide.
My choice of tour was Roger Ekis, Antelope Canyon Tours. Navajo owned and operated. The month was December.
A Navajo guide, in a jeep, took us to a mysterious spot in the desert.
The outside looks like a crack in the stone wall or maybe an entrance to a cave.
Once you enter it is and amazing fantasy world of stone, carved by nature.
The darkness inside makes you stop for a minute so your eyes can adapt. The floor is sand, the canyon walls are solid rock and smooth.
Looking skyward we can see the light filtering through the crevices. Every month is a different color scheme, according to the suns position. Our palette, of color was purple, yellow and orange. This is transmitted by the sunlight filtering down from above and bouncing off the canyon walls.
In the summer months the shafts of light, makes light beams, streaming down from the top to the canyon floor. The brilliant sun shafts make the canyon walls different colors.
It is a fragile canyon, only a quarter mile long and one hundred thirty feet deep.
When you get to the end of the quarter mile, you go outside and come back in. It is a much different view than when you were going to other way.
A visual delight that leaves you breathless.
If you go: Page, Arizona is on the Utah, Arizona border near Lake Powell, Utah.
Roger Ekis Antelope Canyon Tours
This story was published in Frommers Budget Travel Magazine March 2004. All rights reserved by Barb Nelson