Photogenic Antelope Canyon

Page, Arizona is a very young city, formed in 1957 as a housing community for the workers and their families during the construction of the Glen Canyon dam on the Colorado river.

In the past 10 years, Page has grown in popularity, and is now on the bucket list for most visitors to Zion and Grand Canyon National park, primarily because it is the setting for the spectacular Antelope Canyons (a geological wonder and a dream for landscape photographers).

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Upper Antelope Canyon

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We found ourselves in Page, Arizona on a crisp Christmas day, hungry and drained from all the driving. Turns out, everything shuts down for Christmas here. A desperate barely palatable fast food lunch later, we rushed out to the venue of the Upper Antelope Canyon to make it to our tour on time.

Our ask for directions to “Chief Tsosie Tours” was met with a snippy “No fake Chiefs here” from a local Navajo guide!! We barely had time to grasp the undercurrents of the retort, and were the last three to arrive for our tour.

We were packed into a modified truck with extra large tires. The ride was hardly 15 minutes but felt like a chase scene right out of Indiana Jones – a bumpy, dusty desert dirt road filled with numerous trucks of tourists racing to the mouth of the canyon all for the treasure trove of photos that lie within.

The Upper Antelope Canyon is probably the canyon most tourists end up going to. Carved by water over centuries, nothing really prepares you for the beauty of the fantastic formations inside. The magic is hard to describe, but it is primarily created due to small cracks at the top of the dark canyon that let light in and illuminates the varying colors of red & the smooth swirls & patterns of sandstone rock. This is Mother Earth’s beauty at its best.

However, the chaos inside the canyon does take away quite a bit from the beauty. The tours inside are built for speed and volume. We booked the photography tour and I can’t tell you how thankful we were. The tour group is smaller, and the tour guide will give you just about 2 minutes for most shots before other groups comes rushing through your shot. The regular tours feature hordes of tourists (sometimes in their hundreds even) and are herded like cattle with barely time to relish the beauty of the canyon.

If you can look past all this, Upper Antelope is spectacularly beautiful and should be in everyone’s bucket list. This is a must-do for any landscape photographer, and is one of the most beautiful places in the world. However, do not show up here unless you understand your camera well and are familiar working your camera with a tripod under low light conditions.

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Lower Antelope Canyon

This is probably my favorite slot canyon in Arizona. The less famous of the two Antelope Canyons, it is a lot less crowded and equally beautiful.

There are no guides in town that take you to this place, you will have to drive to the trailhead and pay the Navajo guides there a small fee. At least this was the case a decade ago when I visited – a lot less herding around, and another 20$ extra for “camera” tours, and the Navajo guide pretty much leaves you alone.

However, do check up online now on whether a prior booking is possible and necessary. Both the Antelope Canyons have since gained a lot in popularity, and apparently draw much larger crowds, even during shoulder seasons.

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Comparison: Antelope Canyons

Both Upper Antelope Canyon & Lower Antelope Canyon are exquisite, and deserve a visit in their own right. However, if you are pressed for time, here is a comparison chart to help you decide:

	How costly?	How photogenic?	How crowded?	How difficult?
Upper Antelope Canyon	Costs a little higher. Regular tours are around $70.	More photogenic. Most photos of Antelope Canyon online are from here. You can see the sunbeam from 10:30-2:30 PM in summer months.	Heavy crowds, especially during holidays & weekends.	Less exertion, hardly 0.3 miles easy trail.
Lower Antelope Canyon	Costs a little lower. Regular tours are around $40.	Less photogenic, but not by much. No photography tours available. No sunbeams in the Lower Antelope Canyon.	There used to be a time when this was less crowded, but this is no longer the case now.	Physically more demanding; 0.5 mile hike & requires climbing up & down steep ladders.  A lot more fun & adventurous.

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Antelope Canyon Tips

1. When to visit: Summers are very hot in Page, and winters are very cold. Spring and Fall are great times to visit. However, the mid-day light beam is most prominent in summer.
2. Book your tour ahead: Both Upper Antelope Canyon & Lower Antelope canyon are on Navajo Nation territory, and requires you to have an authorized tour guide. Owing to the rising popularity of these photogenic slot canyons, there are much larger crowds than before, and you might have to wait in line if you do not book your tickets online, especially if you are here during popular holidays.
3. Photography tour & tripod: Try taking the photographer tour (not the regular tour), especially if you have a professional camera and are decent with a camera. Tripods are not allowed in the regular tour, and you get much shorter a time inside the slot canyons in the regular tour than the photography tour.
4. Lens: Use the widest lens possible. And *DO*NOT* change your lens inside the slot canyon. There is a huge amount of dust inside, and guides sometimes throw sand in the air for tourists to capture light beams.
5. Narrow Spaces: Both canyons are slot canyons, and require you to be comfortable around narrow spaces. It can feel claustrophobic at spots.

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Getting here

Page, Arizona is located in the deep southwest, and is a 4-5 hour drive from the nearest two big cities – Phoenix, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada.

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