• Antelope Slot Canyon Utah
• Antelope Canyon Slots Photographic Tours

Antelope Slot Canyon Tours, Page: Hours, Address, Antelope Slot Canyon Tours Reviews: 4.5/5. Antelope Canyon is an example of a geological curiosity known as a “slot canyon.” As the name suggests, slot canyons are tiny canyons formed when water finds its way into a crack or fissure in the bedrock. Occurring largely in deserts or areas with low rainfall, a slot canyon is the result of thousands of years of weather extremes. Antelope Canyon Marvel at Arizona’s awe-inspiring sandstone slot canyon when you visit Antelope Canyon in northern Arizona. Few geological formations are as picturesque and awe-inspiring as Antelope Canyon, a magnificent slot canyon just east of Page in Northern Arizona. With tall winding walls, it’s a monumental sandstone sculpture. Antelope Canyon is just one of.many. slot canyons in the Page area. In fact the photos in this very post.aren’t. in Antelope Canyon. (le gasp!) All of the slot canyons are on Navajo land so you are required to get a private tour (and photography permit). These private tours are a bit pricey (around $600 a pop) but it’s so so so worth it.

Before our trip, I knew nothing about Antelope Canyon, slot canyons or Page, Arizona. Antelope Canyon caught my interest and I knew I had to see it, especially since it is only one state away. I started researching tour companies, reaching out to other bloggers and turning my day dreams of Antelope Canyon into an actual trip (check out our itinerary here!). I quickly learned that while Antelope Canyon is praised for it’s beauty, it is also notable for being crowded. Really, really crowded. Luckily I discovered Page has quite a few slot canyons, and so we decided to visit more than one. Here is my round up of the best slot canyons in Page.

Antelope Canyon.

To start off, Antelope Canyon is long, it actually goes on for miles. The famous pictures come from two sections, Upper Antelope Canyon and Lower Antelope Canyon. Both of these sections are on Navajo lands and require tours with a Navajo guide. You can also access part of antelope canyon from Lake Powell, which we did on a kayak tour. This part isn’t as beautiful, but kayaking is fun so I would still recommend it.

Kayaking and then hiking into another area of Antelope Canyon.

You can visit both Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon on a “sightseer” tour or a “photography” tour. Both have their pros and cons. Photo tours require that you have an interchangeable lens camera and tripod, and provide you with some crowd control. There will be two guides who take you to different spots along the canyon and the hold the crowds for 2 minutes while you shoot. Photo tours are more expensive and move at a slower pace, so take a little bit more time. Sightseer tours are a larger group and can have any kind of camera/phone and prohibit tripods/monopods/selfie sticks. They move much more quickly and do not provide the same level of crowd control, but are significantly less expensive.

Falling sand in Upper Antelope Canyon with a sun beam shining in behind it.

Upper Antelope Canyon.

We visited Upper Antelope Canyon as part of a photo tour with Adventurous Antelope Canyon Tours. If you are going to do a photo tour, I would recommend doing it for Upper Antelope Canyon. This is the canyon famous for sun beams and sand running down the canyon. To get these shots you really do want to use a decent camera, tripod, and shutter release, but most importantly you need crowd control! Upper Antelope Canyon is more easily accessible than lower, with no stairs/ladders and is wider than lower so it is more popular and gets very crowded. It is gorgeous and I definitely think worth seeing, but my advice is to go early to avoid the crowds or do a photo tour, especially if you want shots of the famous sun beams. While on the subject of sun beams, if that is your primary goal, avoid visiting the canyons during the winter months and book your tour around noon.

Lower Antelope Canyon.

Lower Antelope Canyon is equally beautiful as upper and requires a bit more physical exertion. It has various stair cases that you climb up and down as you navigate through narrow passages. The stairs are pretty steep at some parts (almost like a ladder) and the canyon gets significantly more narrow than upper requiring single file passage at times. For me, this added to the fun and made it a bit more adventurous. However, it does mean that if one person stops to take a picture or enjoy the view for too long, it stops everyone else from moving. For this reason, the tour guides move you through relatively quickly. Don’t get me wrong, they definitely give you time to take pictures, but this isn’t a take your time and self explore experience. However, because of how narrow it was, I actually thought it was easier to get people free pictures than it was in Upper Antelope. I also thought Lower Antelope had more purple coloring than Upper, but this might have been just the time of day I was there. We used Dixie Ellis’ tour company and booked a sightseer tour for about $25/person. Looking back I’m glad we spent the extra money on the photography tour on Upper and DIDN’T spend it on lower. We still got great pictures in lower and carrying a tripod up and down the stairs would have been a pain. Again, I read about 2 hour long waits to get into the canyon, so I recommend booking your tour earlier in the day.

A narrow passageway in Lower Antelope Canyon.

Owl Canyon.

As part of our Upper Antelope Canyon photo tour, we also visited two other slot canyons, Owl and Rattlesnake. We were literally the ONLY people at Owl Canyon and had complete freedom to explore at our own pace. Upper Antelope is very structured (they literally draw a line in the sand on where you set up for pictures), so the freedom of being to move about Owl Canyon at our own pace was great. Owl Canyon gets its name from the owls that live there. We were lucky enough to get to see three of them! Since Owl canyon is wider and doesn’t have any stairs, it is a great option for all ages and fitness levels. I actually think it would be the most fun out of all the canyons for kids, as they could easily explore and might even get to see the owls.

Baby Owl in Owl Canyon 🙂

Rattlesnake Canyon.

Rattlesnake Canyon was our absolute favorite. It had the narrowness of Lower Antelope with the exclusiveness of Owl. We shared it with about seven other people during our visit and so felt like we had it to ourselves. If I could pick only two canyons to visit they would be Upper Antelope and Rattlesnake. Upper Antelope to see the sunbeams and Rattlesnake to get to enjoy the experience without all the people. Unlike Owl Canyon, Rattlesnake doesn’t get it’s name for being home to a family of rattlesnakes. If you look at it from above it winds around like a snake, hence the name Rattlesnake Canyon. Rattlesnake does require climbing a ladder and gets fairly narrow at parts. It is not the best option for those who use wheelchairs, strollers, or who have with difficulty walking/going up stairs.

Other Canyons.

We had a few other canyons that we considered visiting on our second to last day in Page. However, mother nature had other plans and we got rain and wind instead. Slot canyons are prone to flash floods and are very dangerous during rain. Tours are usually cancelled for safety reasons (people have died!). Monsoons usually occur in the afternoon from roughly end of June through August, so please plan your visit accordingly. The other canyons we were interested in were Canyon X, Cardiac Canyon, and Secret Canyon. Canyon X and Cardiac Canyon require tours, but the Secret Canyon does not (to my knowledge). If you are able to visit one of these, I’d love to here about it!

Antelope Canyon is 100% a must see, but you may find you love the other slot canyons even more. Do you have any other canyons to add to my list?

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Page Arizona is home to the famous Antelope Canyon, but also other impressive slot canyons as well.

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×Antelope Canyon is located near Page on Navajo Nation land, just outside Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and close to AZ 98 a few miles east of town (at milepost 299). Antelope is the most visited slot canyon in the Southwest, partly because it is easily accessible and by far the most publicized, and also since it is extremely beautiful, with just the right combination of depth, width, length, rock color and ambient light; many other slot canyons are deeper, narrower or longer, and some have rock that is even more colorful and sculptured, but here conditions are ideal.

Location

The seasonal stream of Antelope Creek flows into Lake Powell 3 miles east of Page in far north Arizona. Most of the watercourse is wide and sandy, but it forms two sections of accessible slot canyon near the lake (Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon), separated by several miles of flat desert terrain. Both may be approached from AZ 98; the upper canyon (also known as Corkscrew Canyon) is reached at the end of a very sandy 2 mile 4WD track south of the road beginning near milepost 299, and it is this part which is most often visited. Lower Antelope Canyon extends between AZ 98 and the lake, and is reached by a short track northwards leading to a parking area from where the escorted tours depart. This is slightly more demanding to visit, requiring climbing up and down several ladders.

Fees

To visit either part of Antelope Canyon is expensive. There is a fee of $8 for a standard permit required to enter Navajo territory, and an additional charge is due to the families who own the land around the canyons and regulate all access - the cheapest is currently (2020) around $60 for the shorter but more popular upper section and a little more for the longer lower canyon. As of 2018 all visits are only allowed as part of organized tours, preferably booked in advance, though there may be availability on the day during less popular months. The price may be higher for peak time visits, departing 10 am to midday. The fees will doubtless increase as the Navajo continue to exploit the ever-growing popularity of the canyon.

Route Description

Upper Antelope Canyon

When approaching upper Antelope Canyon, there is no obvious clue as to its location. The trail seems to end at the base of a red sandstone plateau about 20 yards high, but the sight of an Indian jewelry stall soon indicates its position - the entrance is a narrow curved slit in the cliffs only a few feet wide. Once inside, the temperature drops as much as 20 degrees as the visitor enters one of the most beautiful of all natural formations. The sunlight filtering down the curved sandstone walls makes magical, constantly changing patterns and shadows in many subtle shades of color. Some sections of the canyon are wide and bright, while others are narrower and more cave-like, with no light reaching the sandy floor. After only 150 yards or so, the canyon becomes suddenly much shallower near the top of the plateau. It may take only 3 or 4 minutes to walk through, but the canyon is well worth the arduous trek or expensive journey required to get there. Pictures taken here adorn camera shops and photographic manuals throughout the world, and usually there will be many people waiting with tripods and light meters trying to compose the perfect shot, and grumbling when other people walk in front of their two minute exposure. There are other equally short but pretty narrows further upstream, though these are not open to visitors.

Lower Antelope Canyon

The lower canyon is longer and deeper than the upper section, but also slightly more challenging, requiring climbing down ladders in some places to descend several sheer drops. It was here that 11 people were drowned in a flash flood in August 1997, when water 50 feet deep from a thunderstorm 5 miles away swept through the canyon, eventually deepening it by 4 feet. Lower Antelope Canyon was closed for 9 months before reopening with improved safety features, and now all visitors must now be accompanied by a guide. Both parts of the canyon are still beautiful, but any sense of adventure or tranquility is long since gone - best to try one of the hundreds of other Southwest slot canyons for these qualities. The nearest alternatives, only requiring a $6 daily permit, are Buckskin Gulch and Wire Pass.

Antelope Slot Canyon Utah

Other Canyons

The short slot of Upper Antelope Canyon is six miles from Lake Powell but only about half way along the drainage, which to the south extends across empty desert land, initially as a sandy wash, then as a rocky gorge as the land gradually rises. Tributaries join from both sides, some also containing slot sections, while the upper end splits into two main forks, both deep and narrow. Several other segments of the drainage system have received semi-official names, and may be visited as part of specialized tours, charged in the range $80 to $250. Closest to Hwy 98 is Owl Canyon, which joins Antelope from the southwest, one mile from the road; this has a 900 foot-long slot near its lower end and much longer narrows 2.5 miles upstream, a section also known as Mountain Sheep Canyon. A little further, the uppermost stretch of the drainage is Ramshead Canyon, in which the walls partly overhang above the streambed. Another short slot known as Ligai Si Anii Canyon is also in this area, accessed from Copper Mine Road. The next major tributary south (0.7 miles before Upper Antelope) is Rattlesnake Canyon, the lower end of which forms a 500 foot slot, with two small arches. Wind Pebble Canyon is a longer tributary with several enclosed, photogenic sections, named for the stones embedded in the walls; it joins Antelope from the west, nearly 6 miles south of the highway. The two upper forks are Canyon X (east) and Cardiac Canyon (west) - both are cliff-lined for around one mile, containing slots alternating with more open passageways. The latter is rather more strenuous to explore.

Map of Slot Canyons of Antelope Creek

Antelope Canyon Slots Photographic Tours

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