Tag Archives: Navajo

The Two Antelope Canyons

Posted on by
18

You must see at least one of them when you’re at Lake Powell.

Antelope Canyon SquareI’m working on an itinerary for a Flying M Air excursion client. They’ve decided to customize their Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure to add another day at Page, AZ, as well as an overnight stay at Bullfrog Basin about halfway up Lake Powell.

One of the things they wanted to add to their trip was a visit to Lower Antelope Canyon. The trip includes a visit to Upper Antelope Canyon, which is the attraction that gets the most visits. I felt it important to explain the difference between these two places and provide additional information on how they could be visited. I figured this information might help others plan their visit to the Page area.

Antelope Canyon: An Overview

Let’s start with an overview of what Antelope Canyon is and how it was formed.

Upper Antelope CanyonAntelope Canyon was formed mostly by the action of water in Antelope Creek, a south-to-north arroyo southeast of Page, AZ on the Navajo Reservation. During heavy rains to the south, the normally dry creek bed turns into a stream of water that rushes northward, sometimes at dangerous flood stage levels. (Indeed, 11 tourists were killed in Lower Antelope Canyon during a flash flood in 1997.)

Lower Antelope CanyonOver time, the water has carved a series of narrow slot canyons through the red rock sandstone. Two of these slots are open to the public. Upper Antelope Canyon is south of route 98 (see top satellite photo); Lower Antelope Canyon is north of route 98 (see bottom satellite photo). Examination of satellite images of the area show additional slot canyons along Antelope Creek, but they are not open to the public.

Both canyons have restricted access. You must pay a fee to the Navajo Nation and enter the canyon with a Navajo guide.

Both canyons have smooth, carved, Navajo sandstone walls that are quite beautiful. Antelope Canyon is one of the most photographed locations in the area.

Upper Antelope Canyon

Antelope CanyonUpper Antelope Canyon is, by far, the more visited of the two. I think there are two reasons for this:

  • Tour companies based a few miles away in Page take groups of tourists directly to the mouth of the canyon, making access convenient.
  • The floor of Upper Antelope Canyon is generally level, making the canyon very accessible, even to those who are less physically fit.

Upper Antelope Canyon is about 600 feet long, carved through what looks (from the air) like a single sandstone formation. Much of the canyon is so narrow that you can touch both walls with your hands at the same time. The downsteam opening of the canyon is bright with three big “rooms.” The rest of the canyon is much darker and narrower.

Most of the photos you see of Antelope Canyon were shot in Upper Antelope Canyon. At certain times of the day and year, shafts of light come down into the canyon. Photographers often kick up sand or dust into the light shafts for interesting photographic effects.

There are two ways to visit Upper Antelope Canyon:

  • Sign up for a tour with a Page-based tour company. The fee they charge covers the fee to the Navajo Nation as well as their fee for guide service. They will provide transportation from their location in town to the mouth of Upper Antelope Canyon, usually in a large, open-backed truck with bench seats. Your driver/guide will then walk you through the canyon. Afterwards, you’ll have about an hour to explore it on your own.
  • Drive up to the park entrance on Route 98, not far from the power plant. Pay a park entrance fee and park your car. Then pay a fee to tour the canyon. You can then wait on benches there until a tour is ready to go and climb aboard the same kind of open-backed truck to reach the mouth of the canyon. The driver/guide will walk you through the canyon and give you about an hour to explore it on your own.

They’re basically the same experience, but one requires you to wait outdoors in a relatively unpleasant environment while waiting for your tour to depart.

If you’re wondering which one is cheaper, there really isn’t much of a difference in price. I prefer using a tour company based in town, strictly for convenience. If you do decide to use a tour company, I recommend Antelope Canyon Tours.

You cannot drive your car to the mouth of the canyon. You must go with a guide.

If you are interested in photographing Upper Antelope Canyon, you must read this.

Lower Antelope Canyon

Lower EntranceLower Antelope Canyon has far fewer visitors than Upper. Unlike Upper, no tour companies — at least none to my knowledge — visit it. In addition, the canyon itself requires a decent amount of physical fitness. There are ladders, narrow passages, and various places where scrambling on the smooth sandstone is necessary. Heck, even the opening of the canyon, where you descend into a crack in the rock (shown here) seems designed to keep certain folks out: a fatty simply wouldn’t fit through it.

Lower Antelope CanyonThe great thing about Lower Antelope Canyon, however, is that you have up to four hours to explore it pretty much on your own. This gives you plenty of time to shoot photos or lose yourself in thought between the smooth sandstone walls. Because there are far fewer visitors, it’s a more relaxed and pleasant place to visit. You can probably guess that I prefer it.

Lower Antelope Canyon is only accessible by driving up to the parking area, paying the fee, and getting a guide to take you down. Sometimes a guide will take you straight down; other times they make you wait. The entrance to the canyon is walking distance from parking. The guide does not stay with you. Although you’re limited to four hours in the canyon, there’s no one keeping track. You can exit the canyon the same way you entered or climb out on a series of well-built ladders on the far end and walk back along the east wall of the canyon.

Visiting Both

My clients want to visit both, which I think is a great idea. What better way to appreciate the difference between them?

Of course, since they are separate, there’s no easy way to visit both. You can save the park entrance fee — which I believe is about $6 — if you drive to Upper and then visit Lower on the same day. If you’re interested in photography, however, that means that you might not get the best light for both canyons. It all depends upon the time of year and angle of the sun. We’ll be there in March when the sun is nearly straight overhead at noon; midday seems like a good time to visit.

Animals from the Air

Posted on by
Comment

Wild horses, antelope, and sheep — oh, my!

I flew from Grand Canyon Airport to Page Municipal Airport (at Lake Powell) again yesterday.

FlightPath.jpgEach time I make this trip, I follow pretty much the same route, hugging the southeast corner of the Grand Canyon Special Flight Rules Area (SFRA) until I get to the Little Colorado River Gorge and then heading pretty much due north. I wind up just outside the SFRA near Marble Canyon so I can show off Navajo Bridge and Lees Ferry before a quick flight past Horseshoe Bend, the Glen Canyon Dam, and Wahweap Marina. If the wind is in my favor, I can touch down at Page within an hour of departure from Grand Canyon. The same distance by car would take about 2-1/2 to 3 hours.

The terrain for most of this flight — from the Little Colorado River Gorge north, in fact — is high desert — technically the famous “Painted Desert” — and relatively barren. There are, however, some interesting features if you look hard for them. Since I’m always trying to point out interesting things for my passengers to see, I look very hard.

Ruins are relatively common. Round rock foundations are the remains of ancient hogans. (This area is on the Navajo reservation.) There are also the remains of animal enclosures, usually build with the same rock. There are complete hogans, some of which may still be occupied for at least part of the year, and ranches with hogans, sheds, outhouses, animal enclosures, and other buildings. All of these things are scattered across an immense landscape that takes more than 30 minutes to cross at 120 miles per hour.

There are also animals.

One of the questions I’m asked quite often by passengers is whether I see wildlife from the helicopter. I do, but not so often as to make it a common occurrence. It depends on where I’m flying, what time of day it is, and how hard I’m looking for wildlife.

Take antelope, for example. There are a few “prairies” north of I-40 and west of Mt. Kendricks in northern Arizona where, if I look hard enough, I can usually spot a herd of antelope. I know where to look and I remember to look. They’re hard to spot because their color matches the terrain so well. It usually takes movement to spot them. When I see them and point them out, my passengers never see them at first. I have to slow down, turn around, and drop a few hundred feet as we approach the herd. That gets them running a bit so my passengers can see them. As soon as they’re spotted — and photographed, if the passengers remember to whip out a camera — I move away. It’s not my goal to terrify the antelope population of northern arizona by buzzing them with a helicopter.

(When I flew at the Grand Canyon, I always saw at least one elk a day in the forest on one of my first or last flights for the day. My passengers never saw them and, since swooping around to show them wasn’t possible, I simply stopped pointing them out. It would be my own private treat.)

There are wild horses in numerous places throughout Arizona. I wrote a bit about them here. They’re also on the route I take from the Grand Canyon to Page. Today, my passengers and I spotted at least four herds of them — the most ever. They’re a lot easier to spot than antelope because of their size and color. But they’re also a lot easier to confuse with cattle. I look for long legs and long, thick tails.

There are domesticated sheep in various places throughout northern Arizona. We flew over a good-sized herd tended by four dogs today. They were a lot farther south than I expected — I usually see them farther north. This could be a different herd, of course. There were about 50 animals in that herd and the dogs did a pretty good job of keeping them together, even when my helicopter spooked them. (Yes, I had to do a circle for my passengers to see them; they were pretty small.)

In the past, I’ve also seen javelinas (pronounced have-a-leenas) from the air. They’re usually in herds of a dozen or more animals and I’ve only spotted them when I was alone, flying a lot lower than I do with passengers on board.

Of course, I don’t have photos of any of this. I’m flying and my hands are usually busy. My passengers never seem to remember to send me their shots. But one of these days, I’ll have some photos to share.

On the Road Again

Posted on by
4

Traveling again.

If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard from me here in a while, it’s because I’ve been traveling. I’m doing one of my Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventures in northern Arizona, accompanied by a video crew and staff writer for a respected travel magazine.

The goal of this trip is to gather about 90% of the video needed to create three individual broadcast-length videos, each of which will be made available on DVD. It’s a huge project and, so far, we have at least 20 hours of raw video footage to wade through.

I’m flying with a door off and a video guy on board taking glare-free video images of what we fly over. He also has at least two POV.1 cameras mounted inside the helicopter at all times. The other video on the ground is “chasing” us — actually, he’s getting a big head start each day to drive to the airport where we’ll land before we arrive — and taking video of us landing. Then there are cameras whirring all over the place on the ground.

Wild HorsesThe writer is sitting up front beside me, taking notes and using my Nikon D80 to shoot images of what she sees. Although a good portion of the shots have some unfortunate glare — not much you can do about that when shooting through Plexiglas — many of them are really good. Like this shot she took of a herd of wild horses we overflew on the Navajo Reservation two days ago.

It’s been a busy week so far. Although I’m trying to demonstrate to the writer what my Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure is all about, I’m also working with the video crew to make sure we capture all of the footage we need for our three videos. I’m hoping she understands that my usual clients won’t be rushing around like nuts all day.

Antelpe CanyonI’m treating myself to a few of the activities my excursion guests get to enjoy. For example, on Tuesday, I joined the crew for a boat ride on Lake Powell that visited the “business side” of the Glen Canyon Dam before squeezing about a mile up Antelope Canyon (see photo) and gliding up Navajo Canyon for a look at the “tapestry” of desert varnish on some cliff walls. I skipped the Sedona Jeep tour and Monument Valley tour to work with one of the video guys or just rest up. Normally, while my guest are touring, I’m scrambling to get the luggage into their hotel room and confirming reservations for the next day. You might imagine how tired I am after 6 days of playing pilot and baggage handler.

At this moment, however, I’m sitting at the dining table of a double-wide mobile home near Goulding’s Lodge in Monument Valley. (Long story; believe it or not, the only lodging we cold get here in MV was in a pair of mobile homes that are part of the lodge.) I have the front drapes drawn aside so I can watch the eastern sky brighten for what promises to be a classic silhouetted butte sunrise. I always enjoy my dawns here at MV. Seeing the famous buttes outside my window is always surreal.

Today, we were scheduled to fly down to Winslow for lunch, then tour Meteor Crater and the Grand Falls of the Little Colorado River. Normally, the Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure takes this route on the way to its last overnight stop at Flagstaff. But today we’ll probably go straight back to Page. I have four aerial photo shoots at Page starting on Friday morning; the money I make doing them will pay for this video excursion. We’ll do more video between those flights. Then we’ll hit the Crater, Falls, and Flagstaff on our way back to the Phoenix area on Sunday.

It’s a big trip and a bunch of huge projects. Just the kind of thing to keep me busy between flights for the winter season. But if all works well and as planned, I might be flying this route weekly in the coming spring and fall — with real paying passengers to take care of along the way.

Mike at Rainbow Bridge

Posted on by
Comment

Hold on. More to come.

My husband, Mike, joined me in Page for the weekend. I did some work, but we also had some fun. Yesterday, we rented a boat and went out to Rainbow Bridge, the world’s largest natural stone arch. Rainbow Bridge is only accessible by boat from the lake or by a grueling hike from a trailhead near Navajo Mountain. Even by boat, there’s currently a 2/3 mile hike from the dock to the Bridge. But that doesn’t stop hundreds of people — mostly on the three daily tour boats — from visiting.

Mike Holds up Rainbow BridgeI have a lot more to say about this day trip, but I can’t stop to write about it now. I’m terribly behind on a book project — partially because I took yesterday off — and I need to get the darn book done already.

But I leave you with this photo of Mike, apparently holding up the bridge. We took this photo in response to Mike’s friend, Bob Holds Up UnisphereBob, who recently sent a photo of himself holding up the Unisphere, a New York City landmark.

Four Tips for Great Antelope Canyon Photos

Posted on by
6

You don’t need to be a professional photographer to get great shots of this incredible place.

This past week, I made my fourth visit to Antelope Canyon near Page, AZ.

Antelope CanyonAntelope Canyon is an incredible slot canyon cut through Navajo sandstone. At certain times of the day at certain times of the year, the sunlight enters the top of the canyon, illuminating it with a golden light. The canyon has been featured in many magazines, sometimes with shafts of light capturing particles of dust set in motion by the cool breeze. Everyone who sees these photos dreams of taking photos just like them.

The sad reality of Antelope Canyon is that it’s a major tourist attraction that has hundreds of visitors a day. The prime midday time slots are especially crowded, with dozens of photographers vying for position to capture the perfect image. Add to that the normal tourist crowd with their flash cameras and you have a less-than-perfect photo opportunity.

That said, I’m proud to say that the photo you see here was taken at about noon last Tuesday. I had never before seen so many people in the canyon. The “serious” photographers were especially obnoxious, blocking the narrow canyon with their tripods, making it next to impossible for anyone to move forward. Yet there was only one person within sight when I took this photo, and I did it with a point-and-shoot digital camera.

Here are my secrets.

  • Don’t be in a hurry. The tour groups visiting Antelope Canyon come in truckloads of 6 to 18 people each. In most cases, group members are in a hurry to get through the canyon. The truth is, the first two or three chambers are the most beautiful and usually have the best light. By hanging back in the group, you can have these chambers all to yourself — before the next group comes through. (That’s how I found myself alone with just one other photographer for a full five minutes with this beautiful scene in front of me.)
  • Turn off your flash. Flash illumination will wash out the colors and cast deep shadows where shadows simply don’t belong. If your camera has an “automatic” or “program” mode, it should be “smart” enough to get the exposure right. This photo was taken with natural light. And no, I didn’t use Photoshop to enhance it.
  • Use a tripod. This is must. Don’t trust image stabilization features. I mount my camera vertically on the tripod and extend its legs while I’m still on the truck, so I’m ready to go right away. Then all I do is spread the tripod’s legs, embed its feet in the sandy floor of the canyon, and fine-tune to frame my subject. And, in case you’re wondering, my tripod for this duty is a $10 model that was thrown in as a giveaway with my video camera — in other words, a piece of junk.
  • Use a cable release…or your camera’s self-timer. Pushing the button on your camera will shake it — possibly enough to blur the image. That’s why you should use a cable release to snap the photo. Your camera doesn’t support that? No problem. Set the camera’s self timer to one or two seconds and press the button. Your button-pressing finger will be safely out of the way when the photo snaps.

Been to Antelope Canyon? I’d love to see your photos. Use the Comments to link to your best shots and share them with the rest of us.

And if you’d like to read more about my visits to this wonderful place, read “Antelope Canyon,” a post I wrote here last year.

Buy on RedBubbleThe full-frame version of this photo is available for sale as cards and prints at RedBubble.com.