Travel Photography > Desert Southwest > Colorado Plateau

Soon, I was following him, and we ended up at a clearing in the desert. A Navajo man was standing there. The travel photographer paid my Navajo fee.

It was mild, and slow moving, so I was able to pull myself out with little problem, and continued on. The Buckskin Gulch was a beautiful slot canyon of changing colors and striated lines and waves.

I turned around in the early evening, tired and dreading the weight on my back. My nose was bleeding as I climbed back through the slot canyons. I stopped frequently for water, changing the angle of the pack on my back. 6 miles to the Wire Pass trailhead and I remembered Mr. Kurtz, dying, "The horror. The horror." Out of the bug-infested slots, I dropped on the sand, I had known I was unfit for this. "Experienced Canyoneers Only" said the outfitting guides. My nosebleed dripping in the sand.

But I also knew that I would do it, and I would make it. So I sat there, drinking water and chewing on my last bagel. When I returned to the jeep, there were two cars parked next to mine. Hikers were there drinking beer, and I talked with them about tripods and dust and then I was off, south, and then east along the edge of Utah's southern border, to Arizona, and across the Colorado River to Page, where I stayed overnight.

In the morning, I awoke well before the 5:45 alarm, and left for Navajo country, to the East, and made my way up some district roads to a small turnoff, with a view of Lake Powell to the North, and a vast expanse of nothing to the South. Here it was, Lower Antelope Canyon, the most notorious of the slots.

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