Light Beam In Upper Antelope Slot Canyon, Navajo Tribal Lands

A hiker admiring the striated walls and dramatic light within Antelope Canyon, a deep narrow slot canyon formed by water and wind erosion.

Light Beam In Upper Antelope Slot Canyon, Navajo Tribal Lands

Slot canyons are formed when water and wind erode a cut through a (usually sandstone) mesa, producing a very narrow passage that may be as slim as a few feet and a hundred feet or more in height. The Upper Antelope Slot Canyon is likely the world's most well-known slot canyon, having appearing in films, television commercials and thousands of published photographs. The sandstone striations, wildly curving walls, ethereal light and tortured twisting passages that characterize Upper Antelope Canyon draw visitors and photographers year round, to the point that the canyon becomes jammed with people in the hot hot hot summertime. Normally the Antelope Canyon slot canyons are dry and sandy, but flash floods form suddenly, transforming the slot canyon in minutes into a roiling, water-filled trap in rainy weather. Tragically, in 1997 a flash flood in the lower Antelope Canyon slot canyon killed eleven people of a party of twelve. Both the upper and less-visited lower slot canyons in Antelope Canyon are accessible only through permit and are located on LaChee Navajo tribal lands near Page, Arizona.

Slot canyons are formed when water and wind erode a cut through a (usually sandstone) mesa. Lower Antelope Canyon, Arizona.

Antelope Canyon, slot canyon exploring and hiking, canyoneering.

Light Beam In Upper Antelope Slot Canyon, Navajo Tribal Lands

Fantastic light in Upper Antelope Slot Canyon, Arizona.

Lower Antelope Canyon, Navajo Tribal Lands

Light beam in Antelope Canyon.

Light Beam In Upper Antelope Slot Canyon, Navajo Tribal Lands

Lower Antelope Canyon, a deep, narrow and spectacular slot canyon lying on Navajo Tribal lands near Page, Arizona.

Lower Antelope Canyon, Navajo Tribal Lands

Admiring the light, Upper Antelope Canyon, Arizona.

Slot Canyon Light beams, Antelope Canyon, Arizona.

Hiking and photographing, Lower Antelope Canyon, Page, Arizona.

Upper Antelope Canyon Slot Canyon, Navajo Tribal Lands

Inside the entrance to Antelope Canyon Slot Canyon, striated walls and light beams, Page, Arizona.

Empty slot, Antelope Canyon, Arizona.

Scalloped walls and striated sandstone, water erosion, deep narrow slot canyon, Southwest.

iPhone photography, Arizona slot canyon.

Entrance chamber, Antelope Slot Canyon.

Antelope Canyon, a deep narrow slot canyon formed by water and wind erosion.

A photographer works amidst the striated walls and dramatic light within Antelope Canyon, Navajo Tribal Lands, Arizona.

Upper Antelope Canyon Slot Canyon, Navajo Tribal Lands

Eroded sandstone walls of a narrow slot canyon, carved by flash floods and eons of water erosion.