In & out of Utah & Arizona
After Monument Valley I continued on and entered Arizona and headed towards Page, AZ which is south of Powell Lake and right where the dam is for the Colorado rivier continuing through to the Grand Caynon. Before I got to Page, AZ I stopped at Lower Antelope Canyon. By just hearing the name of this canyon it probably doens't do anything for you, but I garuentee you that you've seen photos of this canyon in magazines, calendars, and with inspirational quotes. It is a gorgeous canyon and when the sun is just right beams of light come flooding in (that is about at 10am this time of year).
Antelope Canyon property is owned by local family for several generations. They have put together a company with tours for $28 a person. It isn't something most people want to pay, but once you are in the canyon you totally forget about it. I high suggest going during winter times and during the week. I was lucky and had a small group of only 4 of us, inculding the tour guide. I never got her name, but her grandmother and grandfather own the property. She knew were all the best photo spots were. She would even have us stand in certain sections and take our photos for us, give us tips on best settings for a cameras (yes for iphone, android, canon and nikon). I was with 3 other german people and the group before us were all Eruopean or Asian. I believe I was the only one who was an american tourist, which was really cool. The tour was about an hour, but felt way shorter.
The history, before the Lake Powell dam, which i think it is called Glenn dam, was built the antelope would come from the mesa's and hung out in and around the canyon all the time. The antelope would jump over the top of the cave and climb and chill through out the canyon. That is how it got the name "Antelope Canyon".
I was throughly impressed and was so happy I went and did the tour. This would be a must do trip for anyone. I high recommend doing this the canyon during the winter when the weather is cooler and there are fewer tourist. Our tour guide told us that during the summer is is stiffling hot and there are so many tourist that they just have to rush people through. Meaning that you'll get people in your photos and you won't get individual shots of yourself in awesome spots.
Do you see the Eagle in the photo above?
Next stop was THE WAVE! An amazing spot, just google The Wave, AZ and you'll be amazed. But to get there you need to take 89 over the dam and back up into Utah. After you cross the county line you clock 25 miles and turn left on to House Rock Road. If the road is impassable when wet, and thankfully it was bone dry, but that didn't matter. The 8.3 miles of dirt road was a bit rough, but my RAV4 made it no problem. Parked at the trailhead and started at down the trail. Ok, there is no map, no directions and the directions I got from online were using gps half the time. I got turned around twice and by the time I figured out which way I should be going it was already 4pm. I had missed the best time of day for photos at The Wave and being so far away from civilization as the day was getting later just didn't seem smart. So I turned around, but not defeated. I will go there again and find it!
Doing my best to not feel disappointed I hike out of AZ, drove through Utah and then go back down into AZ and make a beelined towards Horseshoe Bend which was only 2 or 3 miles south of Page, AZ. Orginally I wanted to see horseshoe Bend during the day, but my tour guide at Antelope Canyon said she liked it best at sunset. I hiked as fast as I could and then sat at the very edge and played around with my camera until the sunset and I got some awesome photos. Watching the sunset and just sitting there relaxing with about 30 other poeple scattered all over was amazing. It was the perfect ending to a beautiful and adventrous day.
The orginaly plan was to camp at The Wave, but since I was back south of Page and wasn't tired I drove another 125 miles to Flagstaff, AZ. Once in Flagstaff I went to a coffee shop and started working on photos, then found a safe place to sleep and went to bed. Awwww life is good :)
