After visiting Zion National my next destination was Antelope Canyon.
Good thing about trips like this is that sometimes under some circumstances the plans can change and you have to improvise.
This trip wasn’t an exception, on my way to Page city I saw sign of Coral Pink Sand Dunes and I thought this will be a great place to shoot at sunrise, and I turned from my way and headed to the campground of Sand Dunes. But all my plans and expectations were ruined by heavy rain, there was mud all over the place so once I woke up at 7am I had nothing else to do but drive directly to Antelope Canyon. The rain went on and on and I already started accepting the idea that Antelope won’t be accessible for visitors, and I was right when I arrived to Lower part of the canyon.
To visit this canyon you need a guide , and once I arrived there were 2 guys sitting in an old muscle car , my first thought was that they are visitors, and I had kind of relief that canyon is open, but unfortunately those two guys were local guides, and they told me that it’s closed for today because of the rain and I can try tomorrow morning. It was a shame that weather ruined this visit, but there was still a chance that the Upper part of the canyon might be open, and luckily it was ! Only problem with the Upper part is that it’s too crowded, and It’s nearly impossible to make a clean shot there.
Anyway it’s better than nothing so I payed for the tour which by the way was the most expensive one so far 40$. I was with a group of Japanese people, we climbed in the back of a pickup truck and headed to the entrance to canyon. It was still raining but inside the canyon it was surprisingly dry. So we started our tour through the gate, the shape of the walls are so twisted and under different angles they look really different, if you use your imagination you can see faces, animals even some famous people while looking on the edges of the stones, carved by the winds in such an extraordinary way. Guides themselves know where exactly to stand and where to look in order to see a certain figure, they are pleasant enough even to take a picture for you with your camera. My Japanese group was so amazed and their reaction to each an every photo and each and every shape that they managed to see was so funny that for a moment I stopped shooting and was just enjoying their wooowing :)))
Winds have created those tonnels it such and extraordinary way you won’t find anywhere else anything like this. It’s a shame that light conditions were very poor because of the overcast , when it’s a sunny day you can see sun beams from the top of the canyon all the way to the bottom, but since there was no sun so no beams, but still I am happy that at least I managed to see this incredible place and made few nice shots, you can see them below.