The canyon starts as a shallow slot and quickly gets deeper.(click image to enlarge)
Slot Canyons of the Escalante
Bob Ayers invited me to join him exploring slot canyons, I was on vacation and was thrilled to join him.
We started out in one of the classic slots, Lower Antelope Canyon. It is in the Navajo Nation and so they charge for entry. We paid and were the first ones into the slot for the day.
Bob led me to the place that the water started to cut into the navajo sandstone. It felt strange to enter a narrow crack descending into the earth.
Some parts of the floor were flat and sandy and easy walking. Which was a good thing, because we were not looking at our feet, we were looking at the amazing colors that the sunlight brought out in the sandstone as it bounced from wall to wall, and at the patterns of crossbedding in the navajo sandstone.
I couldn't resist looking straight up from the dim bottom of the
canyon to the bright sky far above.
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Scientific Explorations with Paul Doherty |
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20 June 2007 |