Antelope Canyon

Shafts of midday sun dropping into a crack barely wider than a person's shoulders have made Antelope Canyon among the most photographed places in the American Southwest. The slot lies on Navajo Nation land in the LeChee Chapter, just east of Page, Arizona, and was sculpted from Navajo Sandstone by flash floods that funnel through it after summer storms, polishing its walls into flowing curves. It has two sections. Upper Antelope Canyon, called Tséʼbighanilini, the place where water runs through rocks, is wide at the bottom and easy to walk. Lower Antelope Canyon, Hasdeztwazí, is narrower and requires ladders and stairs.

The same floods that carved the canyon make it dangerous. On August 12, 1997, a flash flood from a distant storm swept through Lower Antelope Canyon and killed 11 visitors. The Navajo Nation made the canyon part of the Lake Powell Navajo Tribal Park in 1997, and today all visits are on guided tours run by Navajo-licensed operators, with tribal park fees charged on entry. Guides time visits for light and weather, and tours close when rain threatens anywhere in the watershed upstream.

• Arizona
  The Grand Canyon State, admitted 1912 located in
• Navajo Nation
  The largest reservation in the United States located in
• Glen Canyon
  The Colorado River canyon mostly drowned beneath Lake Powell near
• Lake Powell
  Glen Canyon Dam's reservoir on the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona near