Navajo sandstone cut into a slot so narrow and so smoothly waved that the light coming down it is the reason people queue. It was made by water: monsoon rain gathers in the basin above, picks up speed and sand and drives through the crack, and it is still doing that. On 12 August 1997 a flash flood killed eleven people in Lower Antelope Canyon, visitors from France, the UK, Sweden and the United States. Barely any rain fell at the canyon itself; the storm was about seven miles upstream. That is why the canyon is on Navajo Nation land, owned and managed by the Navajo Nation, and visited only on a guided tour, and why there are now bolted ladders, deployable cargo nets, a NOAA weather radio and an alarm horn at the fee booth. Book a guide. Coconino County, Arizona, near Page.
Navajo Nation, Coconino County, Arizona
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