Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, and Bryce Canyon in a Day
On Saturday we woke up in Zion National Park and packed up our campsite to head to Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, and Bryce Canyon National Park. We had a tight schedule to keep and lots of driving to do. Antelope Canyon is back in Arizona and there is a time change so we planned accordingly and get to leave a little later.
Antelope Canyon
To visit Antelope Canyon you have to schedule a tour ahead of time, especially if you want one of the prime times. Antelope Canyon is made up of two parts upper Antelope Canyon and lower. Upper is where you may get to see the famous light beams. Most website will forewarn you it is a very popular tourist destination, crowded, and you will be moved through fairly quickly by your guides. We used Adventurous Antelope Canyon tours, getting a good guide has less to do with the company per say than it does with luck and we got lucky. Our guide was not there to rush us, even when pushed to by others, they all help set camera settings but he also showed us his favorite angles for photos and took our pictures for us. Lower Antelope Canyon is said to be less crowded, as are many of the other slot canyons in the area, if that is the experience you are look for go to a different canyon. That said Antelope Canyon is as beautiful as the famous photos we’ve all seen.
A side note, I did NOT do one of the photography tours. They do not allow guests who do not have professional cameras and I was visiting with my fiance. Those on the photography tour were given more time and the area was cleared to help them get the shots but once they set up the guides counted down from 30 I believe or lower and they only had those seconds to shoot before moving on.
We did briefly catch a light beam on the way out. The guides take you through slowly on the way through and let you take photos, on the way out you are supposed to experience the canyon without taking photos, which also helps move you out of the way of others. These are the only photos I got where you can kid of see the light beam, the photographers were stopped in this area and shooting.
Horseshoe Bend
Horseshoe Bend and Lake Powell are very close to Antelope Canyon so we did the short hike to Horseshoe Bend afterwards before deciding to drive to Bryce Canyon (back in Utah and with a time change again).
Horseshoe Bend is a very crowded location and out in the hot sun, they warn you to bring water and you should! It is such a strange formation and way for the water to have moved we took some time exploring here but not too long since we had more driving and a time change ahead of us.
Along the way we saw a small dinosaur museum off the highway and decided to stop. It was full of an assortment of dinosaur foot prints from Utah, some fossils, native artifacts, and a rock collection.
We made it to Bryce Canyon around 4:30 pm and checked out Sunrise point and then Sunset point. We tried the short hike Navajo loop there only to find half of it was closed from rock fall and have to turn around.
These strange sandstone formations are called the hoodoos, they were created by and are changed each year from the spires freezing and then thawing. Melting snow gets into the cracks in the spires and freezes at night, when water freezes it expands which enlarges then cracks making them wider.
After this we headed back towards California with San Diego as our next destination. In California we did much more relaxing and visiting friends but I will have a few more photos!
Just to note, I would never recommend spending so little time at all these locations and so much time traveling in one day but sometimes a road trip calls for it! I can’t wait to get back and get to spend more time in this part of the country.
