It’s a good thing Lower Antelope Canyon was saved for last. Everything else, though beautiful and fascinating, pales by comparison.

Lower Antelope Canyon is created by water – particularly flash floods – rushing through the canyon carrying sand and other debris, eroding the Navajo sandstone walls.  The result as you will see from my photos is a swirling, wavy space lit from above by fissures to the surface.

To gain entrance to the canyon, you climb down five flights of stairs, two of them so steep I had to go down backwards.  The path is about 1.5 kilometres (1 mile) long.  A guide accompanies each group of about eight to ten people, making sure no one gets left behind.  Some of the passages are very tight squeezes with low ceilings and narrow spaces between the walls, while every so often there is a larger open space.  At the end, there’s yet another set of stairs which allows you to pop up, gopher-like, and out of the canyon.

Tomorrow I return to Vancouver.  This Road Scholar tour has been well worth taking.  Our group leader, Diane Griffin, kept us on track and entertained us with her “daily funnies” on the bus, while our photographer/geologist Eldon Griffin (www.istockphoto.com/eldong) and photographer Duke Breitenbach (www.imagesbyduke.com) provided excellent advice about perspective and settings for various lights.

I will leave you now with my photos of the amazingly beautiful Lower Antelope Canyon.  Many photos are taken looking up, while others are looking forward, and sometimes it is difficult to tell which is which.  I have labelled them so you will know.  As always, clicking on the photo will bring up a larger, more defined version.

I have so enjoyed this trip and I hope you have enjoyed travelling along with me.