Friday the 13th. Hmmm! Good thing I’m not superstitious! We slept well last night and had a leisurely morning with no place to go until 11:30. Bob heard in the news from Salt Lake City that we may be able to see the effects of the California wildfires here. Sure enough! Navajo Mountain and the surrounding butte were in a haze from the smoke this morning.
I had to work out a glitch I was having with my blog, so I was in communication this morning with technical support from my blogsite. WTH are cookies and cache and why have they taken over my blog? Luckily, they were able to help me solve my problem. Bob cleared my cache and now I am good to go. Later, Bob worked on washing the truck, so we’ll be driving down the road tomorrow all clean and spiffy. We left the campground at 11:20 because we had to to check in at 11:40 for our Lower Antelope Canyon Tour.
The location was 10 miles from the campground southeast of Page. We arrived on time and checked in. The tour is put on by Dixie Ellis and is located on the Navajo Reservation.
While we waited for our 12:10 reservation. We were entertained by a Navajo native that performed the hoop dance with rings.
He did amazing things and told a story with the hoops. When he was done, our tour was called and our tour guide, also a Native American, was Armondo.
Neither of us knew what to expect from this kind of tour, but we were pleasantly surprised. We walked a short distance through the desert to a hole in the ground.
Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon that was formed from water that ran down the surface and eroded the softer materials on the surface. That created a slot canyon. It continues to erode down through the softer surfaces with each rainstorm. When we reached our entry point, we descended lots of vertical stairs to 100 feet below the surface.
The canyon was only about 1/4 mile long, but it had many twists and turns which made it seem longer. The canyon footing narrowed at times to just a shoe width wide. We climbed more stairs up to different levels throughout the canyon.
Armondo was a wealth of knowledge about the geological make-up of the canyon, flash floods, how the canyon was formed, and how to take some great pictures using the unique lighting the canyon provides. Use your imagination to see the lion face here in this picture.
He did an excellent job! Throughout the hour tour, he would point out different camera shots or unique features within the canyon.
He offered to take some group pictures and showed us how to adjust our cameras for better pictures to capture the light.
At times, he took our camera or smart phones away from us and took pictures that were unbelievable!
There wasn’t a single person in our group that didn’t benefit from his knowledge of the canyon and photography. With only 10 people in our group, he was able to give us lots of individual attention.
Can you see the shape of a leaf here with the lighting?
Can you see the heart shape in the rock here?
When the tour was complete, we crawled up the ladder to the surface and came out a crack in the rocks that you would never had believed.
When we reached the surface, Armondo was playing such beautiful music on his double flute.
The slot canyon was unbelievable! I’ll post a few more pictures here and let you be the judge. Enjoy!
We left there and talked about what an amazing experience we had! We got back about 2:00 and relaxed outside with Auggie and a few cocktails. Auggie seemed to tie Bob up here so he wouldn’t get away. I guess he was glad to see us.
We had dinner and organized a few things for our departure tomorrow. We leave for Monument Valley, one of the long awaited destinations on our trip. I have always wanted to drive through Monument Valley. I checked out the stars and could see the Milky Way above us. It is pitch black here and there was no ambient light to hinder my viewing. We have really enjoyed our stay here at Lake Powell and were able to see a different side of the area than we’ve seen before.
