Look up in
Navajo Nation, Arizona
Sandstone carved by flash floods into something that looks poured rather than eroded - and the light only falls right for an hour a day.
Explore the CanyonThe Two Canyons—Upper and Lower, and how to see them.
This 360° panorama was captured on the floor of Antelope Canyon on the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona, looking up through the slot to the sky.
The camera stands on the sand floor of the canyon with the walls rising on both sides and closing almost together overhead. What you are looking at is Navajo sandstone that flash floods have cut and polished into curves - the flowing shapes running up the walls are the record of water moving through, not of anything geological and slow. Light only reaches down here in reflected bounces, which is why the rock reads orange and pink rather than the pale buff it is at the surface. Look straight up and the slot of open sky is a few feet wide. Look down and the floor is ridged like the bed of a stream, because that is what it is.
Antelope Canyon is one of the most accessible slot canyons in the American Southwest. As a result of that accessibility, it is also one of the most visited and the most photographed slot canyon in the region.
Found near the city of Page, it ranks high among the best natural attractions in Arizona. Tours are extremely popular - so much so that visitors are limited to two hours in each of the canyon's two main sections, known as Upper Antelope Canyon and Lower Antelope Canyon.
Both sections lie within the LeChee Chapter of the Navajo Nation, a region that receives around three million visitors a year, due largely to Lake Powell and the Antelope Canyons.