Upper Antelope Canyon

Author's Comments

You enter the canyon and the world above closes behind you. The walls rise on either side in long, sculpted curves, and the air goes cool and quiet, and for a moment you forget that the desert is ten feet over your head. Upper Antelope is famous for the beams. I will not pretend otherwise. From late March to early October, between roughly eleven and one, the sun finds the slit at the top of the canyon and a column of light drops straight down through the dust, and it is as theatrical as everyone says it is. But the beams are not actually what I think about when I think about this place. What I think about is the stone itself. The Navajo Sandstone here moves the way water moves, frozen mid-current, and the deeper colors live in the shadows rather than the lit sections. Reds going to violet. Orange going to something almost black. The detail shots are where this canyon rewards patience, and a photography tour is the only way to have the time and the tripod to make them. The crowds are real. The tours run nose to tail in summer, and you will not be alone, and the guides will move you along faster than you want to go. Book the photography tour. It costs more and it is worth it. Bring a wide lens for the beams and a longer one for the abstract sections where the wall fills the frame and scale disappears entirely. This is Navajo land, and you are a guest. The canyon has been here longer than any of us can really hold in our heads. Move through it with that in mind.

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