I even loved the outsides of these canyons. Our guide explained that to their knowledge the Navajo never knew about these canyons until very recently. They were discovered when a shepherdess wondered where her sheep were disappearing to. You would never know they are there from as close as 6 feet away. These canyons were created when flash floods come down the creek bed and meet a sandstone block. The water washes into a crack and starts wearing away more and more sandstone.
In Upper Antelope Canyon the floor is flat sand. I am told it is 100 yards long, but I'd swear it is longer. There are places where the walls at the bottom are around a foot wide and other places that open out into "rooms" that are may be as much as 10 feet (it would be hard to measure with all the twists.) You have to have a guide in Upper Antelope Canyon. They will take groups of up to around 30. If you pay a little extra you can get a Photographer's Tour. Then your guide will act as a traffic cop to keep people out of your pictures. He will also point out places of interest. I found that I didn't need someone else pointing. Everywhere I looked was either an "Aaaahh" or an "Oohhh!" One of the good things about having a guide is that some of them would play a flute or ocarina and it would echo through the canyon.
I started out with my 70 to 300 mm lens and found I was shooting almost always at 70 - the widest zoom, so when we got through the canyon and were waiting for it to clear out of other people I changed to my widest lens - just right.
Since we paid extra to keep people out of our pictures it is ironic, now that I'm home, that the pictures I like the most are the ones with people in them (especially my favorite person above.) The eeriness of the canyon is caught by a lonesome image, but you can't appreciate the size without a person. Not only does this image show that size, but it catches the glow of the sunlight bouncing repeatedly off the red rock.
Lower Antelope Canyon is the same, but sooo different. With an SLR camera and a tripod you pay a little extra and get a two hour photographer's pass. You climb down, down, down on metal ladder-stairs with treads that don't match each other. The walls are closer, the floor is not always flat and the top is more open so you can usually see the sky. There are places that you have to turn sideways to get through, which was interesting because my backpack made me kinda round. There a few shorter ladder-stairs along the 1/4 mile canyon, but at the end you climb even farther up to get out. I think we enjoyed the lower canyon best. Maybe because we were alone except for the guided tours that came through about every half hour, maybe because the light really was different.
I was concerned that I wouldn't get any good pictures, but could see early-on that I had some good ones. In looking at them all, I can see that I done good. I didn't get as many really great pix as Dear Hubby, but there are some that are almost breathtaking. This may have been the trip of a lifetime, but if I ever do get a chance to go back - I'm taking it!
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