If there is one thing that made this whole trip worth while it was the antelope canyons in Page, Az.  Even without a camera the slots are spectacular.  If your not photographing I would recommend the Upper Canyon they say it is easier to navigate.  There are some squeezes that make a fat guy have to suck in his belly also it wouldn’t be good for someone with ankle or knee issues.  It is hard to take a bad photo in the canyon if you look for the light.  The lighting in the canyon continually shifts throughout the day so if a spot you like isn’t lit well it probably will be later.

I got to he lower antelope guide station around 8 a.m. Pacific Time.  and bought a photographer’s pass for $26.  The guide gives you some instruction about what is allowed and not allowed in the canyon, as well as talking about the dangers of flooding and those who died in 1997 (See the previous blog entry).  Once he has done that he takes a regular 1 hour tour group with him and you go in after and take your time.  You are allowed to stay longer in he canyon at a rate of $20 for every hour you stay over.  I stayed 3 hours and it cost $49 dollars total.  It was money well spent in my opinion.  About 4-5 tour groups went through when I was in there.  The tour groups go by pretty quickly.  If you go on a regular tour the guide points out shapes in the rock and talks about the history of the Navajo and Canyon.  

Before we went down into the canyon I started talking with another photographer who had been in Las Vegas for photoshop world.  His name was Tom and he was from Missouri.  We talked a lot and I wish I would have gotten more info from him because I would have liked to kept in contact with him from time to time.  If you do get to read this Tom, send me an email and we’ll keep in touch.  Tom told me about Nelson, Nevada which is like an old ghost town, which I plan to visit.  I would like to see how Tom’s pictures of this area turned out since he said that was what he loved shooting.  We entered the canyon together but in 15 minutes I was behind everyone else and ended up spending another hour in the canyon so I didn’t get to see Tom again.

After the slot canyons I decided to do my Laundry and went to the local laundromat where I wrote yesterday’s blog. There wasn’t much left to do for me in Page so I booked a hotel in St. George with the intention of getting in to town early and getting to swim or enjoy a hot tub and then turning in early. I thought before I went to St. George I would find out what spots were on the way and found the Pink Sand Dunes State Park.  Sand dunes can be very beautiful photographed if the light is right.  It would be sunset around the time I got there so I headed off to the Park.  When I got there the sun was lighting the dunes nearly perfectly.  Just about a half hour more and it would be perfect.  There was a Storm back behind the most prominent dune I wanted to photograph.  The only problem I could see is they allow motorcycles and dune buggies on the sand so the tracks make it look unnatural.  I figured I could easily clone these out and try to shoot photos where there were no tracks as much as possible.  I headed for the dune I wanted to photograph so I could get it in such a way as to have an S-curve with one side of the dune being lit by the setting sun and the other side being in shadow.  About the time I got situated the storm clouds covered the sun and lightning started off in the distance.  I then went from trying to shoot sunset dune shots to trying to shoot dune and lightning shots.  It was just a few minutes before a fierce wind kicked up from the storm moving in.  I then realized I was almost underneath the storm.  So I am now standing in the sand in bare feet (I left my shoes at the car to keep sand out of them), there are not many things around taller then me, and I am carrying I large metal tripod.  There’s risky and there’s stupid as Chris Eaton explained it to me the day before when we were photographing the lightning.    So I may have ended up staying in the dunes just a little too long.  I packed up my stuff and headed to the car as fast as I could.  Generally when I try to photograph lightning I do from the car itself.

I ended up leaving the dunes area as the sun was gone and the storm was moving off.  It so happened that the way I was going to get to my hotel got me closer to the storm and I tried getting more lightning shots with a desert silhouette but the strikes I managed to capture weren’t super impressive, I will have to see once they are on a larger screen.

I made it to my hotel but the pool and hot tub were to be closed in 15 minutes so I just went to bed.

Truly I think there are enough things to do around page to keep either a photographer or adventurer happy for a week at least.  You’ve got Horseshoe Bend, the Antelope Canyons, The Wave, Lake Powell, Canyon X, several desert and mountain areas too.  Plus Monument Valley, Pink Sand Dunes, and the north rim of the Grand Canyon all reasonably close by.  Considering how wonderful the antelope canyons are I would recommend Page or Kanab as base camps for excursions into the surrounding areas.