Upper Antelope Tour
Upper Antelope Canyon and Lower Antelope Canyon Information
So you’ve decided to tour both Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon on your upcoming vacation to Northern Arizona. Great! Now, go and find the most patient person you know, and warn them: they’re going to need every ounce of restraint they can muster in order to get through the reservation process with their sanity intact. For starters, they’re going to have to comb through six Antelope Canyon tour websites to find available seats. Then, they’re going to have to go back to square one multiple times when — not if, when — they discover that your desired tour times are sold out. That was then, this is now, and now, you can book both Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon tours in one quick, pain-free step!
Canyons in the world!
Your day of discovery gets off and rolling from Chief Tsosie’s Antelope Slot Canyon Tours in downtown Page, AZ. Aboard super-comfortable luxury touring vehicles, specially modified to handle off-road trekking, you’ll travel down the edge of Manson Mesa to the Navajo Indian Reservation. After a 2-mile trip down a remote dirt road, you arrive at the mouth of Upper Antelope Canyon. As you walk into the chambers of this world-famous slot canyon, you leave behind the noise and heat of the man-made world, and enter the cool, surreal confines of a masterpiece of nature. Formed over aeons by churning flash flood waters and fine grains of sand buffeted by gale force winds, the interior of Upper Antelope Canyon is a kaleidoscope of subtle earth tones, constantly changing in depth and intensity as the sun moves overhead. But at a mere 100 yards in length, Upper Antelope Canyon represents only a small fraction of this complex, multi-faceted geological curiosity. To get a true sense of the powerful and miraculous forces responsible for Antelope Canyon’s formation, you literally have to go deeper, and that’s what you’re about to do next!
This Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend tour arranges an authorized guide for you, and guarantees a guide who's a pro at getting the best photographs. This tour also includes round-trip transport from your Sedona hotel, lunch, a hike to Horseshoe Bend, and a stop at the Cameron Trading Post. Upper Antelope Canyon tour companies are presently taking reservations through February-March of 2019. April reservations should open up sometime in November. Lower Antelope Canyon tours, however, are bookable online right now. Which brings me to a most important point: you’ll need to decide whether you prefer to tour Lower or Upper Antelope.
Upon returning to Page, AZ, you’ll receive directions to Ken’s Lower Antelope Canyon Tours and phase two of your adventure. Following a short walk to the canyon’s entrance, it’s time to get a bit more physical. A climb down a series of ladders takes you to an underground wonderland of spirals, ledges, arches, and bas relief-like formations that will paint pictures in your imagination. At 600m in length, and with several ladders and small boulders to navigate, Lower Antelope Canyon requires a little more effort to enjoy, but millions of people annually find the experience to be well worth the exercise. Both Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon can be a challenging environment for photography, but your Navajo Indian Guides will be there to advise you on how to get the most from your pictures, even from the simplest of cell phone cameras. After your day of exploring is over, you’ll have a more complete appreciation for the intricacy of Antelope Canyon. Want to delve even deeper? Consider adding a boat tour of the waterside of Antelope Canyon to your day’s activities!
You can book your tours back-to-back, or allow time in between to grab lunch at Antelope Point Marina, do some shopping, or catch a swim or a power nap back at your hotel. Availability permitting, the choice is yours! The option to book both Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon tours as a package has never been available before now, and travelers just like you are jumping at the chance to save time and headache. Don’t be left in the dust – book your seats today.
Operation of one or both tour components is weather permitting and may be contingent on a certain number of passengers traveling
Hats, sunglasses, sunscreen, and/or protective clothing should be worn
Please wear appropriate shoes for walking
Backpacks and purses not allowed in Upper Antelope Canyon and may be subject to restriction on the boat tour
Carry enough water for each member of your party
A slot canyon is a long, narrow, deep and tortuous channel or drainageway with sheer rock walls that are typically eroded into either sandstone or other sedimentary rock. A slot canyon has depth-to-width ratios that typically exceed 10:1 over most of its length and can approach 100:1. The term is especially used in the semiarid western United States, including the Colorado Plateau region. Slot canyons are subject to flash flooding and commonly contain unique ecological communities that are distinct from the adjacent, drier uplands.[1] Some slot canyons can measure less than 1 metre (3 ft) across at the top but drop more than 30 metres (100 ft) to the floor of the canyon.
Many slot canyons are formed in sandstone and limestone rock, although slot canyons in other rock types such as granite and basalt are possible. Even in sandstone and limestone, only a very small number of streams will form slot canyons due to a combination of the particular characteristics of the rock and regional rainfall.
Slot canyons around the world[edit]
Slot canyons are found in many parts of the world, predominantly in areas with low rainfall. Some of the best-known slot canyons are to be found in the Southwestern United States. Other significant areas include the Sierra de Guara in northern Spain, the Pyrenees on the border of France and Spain, and the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia.
Australia[edit]
The largest known area of slot canyons in Australia is in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. They occur in a narrow band of sandstone that runs roughly 30 kilometres (19 mi) from east to west, and about 100 kilometres (62 mi) from south to north. The majority of these canyons are in the Wollemi Wilderness, and are difficult to access. A small number are regularly visited by canyoners on weekends in summer. The Grand Canyon, near Blackheath, has a tourist track along its rim, but requires abseiling (rappelling) or swimming to visit fully.
Sandstone slot canyons can also be found in a few more remote parts of Australia, including Karijini National Park and the Bungle Bungles in Purnululu National Park, both in Western Australia, and Carnarvon Gorge in Queensland.
United States[edit]
Southern Utah has the densest population of slot canyons in the world with over one thousand slot canyons in the desert lands south of Interstate 70.[2] Utah's slot canyons are found in Zion National Park at The Narrows, along Canyonlands National Park's Joint Trail, throughout Capitol Reef National Park, within the San Rafael Swell and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, especially along the Escalante River drainage including Coyote Gulch. Many more slot canyons are located on public Bureau of Land Management and state-owned lands in southern Utah, in areas surrounding the aforementioned parks and monuments. Buckskin Gulch—one of the longest slot canyons in the world—begins in southern Utah and continues into northern Arizona within the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness. Northern Arizona also has a high concentration of slot canyons including Antelope Canyon and Secret Canyon, which are two of the most famous slot canyons located near Page on land owned by the Navajo Nation. Slot canyons are also located in the valley between U.S. Route 89 and the Vermilion Cliffs in Arizona, and can be seen as one descends into the valley on U.S. 89, but these are on the Navajo reservation and are closed to the public. The Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument's slot canyon trail in New Mexico is unique as it was carved into tuff (volcanic ash). In California, several slot canyons are located within Death Valley National Park.
Drowning danger[edit]
Local as well as distant storms can cause dangerous flash flooding in slot canyons, and hikers should not enter them if there is any sign of rain in the surrounding area.[3] In many slot canyons, it can be miles before a safe exit or rescue is possible.
On August 12, 1997, eleven tourists, including seven from France, one from the United Kingdom, one from Sweden and two from the United States, were killed in Lower Antelope Canyon by a flash flood.[4][5] Very little rain fell at the site that day, but an earlier thunderstorm had dumped a large amount of water into the canyon basin, seven miles upstream. The lone survivor of the flood was tour guide Francisco 'Poncho' Quintana, who had prior swift-water training. At the time, the ladder system consisted of amateur-built wood ladders that were swept away by the flash flood. Today, ladder systems have been bolted in place, and deployable cargo nets are installed at the top of the canyon. A NOAA Weather Radio from the National Weather Service and an alarm horn are stationed at the fee booth.[6]
Gallery[edit]
Upper And Lower Antelope Canyon Tours
The Siq and Al-Khazneh (the Treasury), Petra, Jordan
Taminaschlucht, Tamina River, Switzerland
The Narrows, Zion National Park, Utah
Kasha-Katuwe, New Mexico
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Department of Agriculture document: 'Soil Survey of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Area, Parts of Kane and Garfield Counties, Utah'(PDF). U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service. p. 305. Retrieved September 30, 2019.
- ^Zion slot canyons
- ^'Safety Tips'. blm.gov. Bureau of Land Management. 2016-03-24. Archived from the original on 2016-09-30. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
- ^'Flash Flood Antelope Canyon'. Retrieved 2006-03-20.
- ^'Antelope Canyon'. Archived from the original on 17 March 2006. Retrieved 2006-03-20.
- ^Kramer, Kelly (2008). 'Man vs. Wild'. Arizona Highways. 84 (11): 23.
External links[edit]
Upper Antelope Tour From Page
Media related to Slot canyons at Wikimedia Commons