Summer is the most popular time to visit Antelope Canyon and midday is the busiest time of day. To avoid the crowds, visit during the shoulder or off-season months. Lower Slot Canyon has become so popular that the tour operators can no longer offer general tours and photography tours. The option to take a photography tour is over. If you don’t mind sacrificing ideal lighting to avoid the worst of the crowds, go early or go late in the afternoon. Midday is the most popular time to visit Antelope Canyon because the lighting is the best at this time. Even if you reserve a 1 pm time slot, your tour group could end up waiting in line to enter the canyon, especially during the peak summer months.īook your tickets online in advance! This is recommended especially during peak season. That is 30 people every 30 minutes and the canyon can fill up fast. Both companies run tours every 30 minutes, with approximately 10 to 15 people per group. There are two tour companies that run tours into Lower Antelope Canyon: Ken’s Tours and Dixie Ellis’ Tours. It costs $55 per person for this tour, plus taxes, service charges, and an additional $8 for the Navajo Park Permit Fee. There are several companies offering tours into the canyon. Slowly but surely, she said, the canyon would become wider.Antelope Canyon can only be visited on a tour. In 2022, for instance, she said there were 11 flash floods in the canyon, which formed a new hole in the wall and also eroded about 4 inches in some areas. The guide also talked about flash floods that have occurred in the past, as well as the changes that have occurred in the canyon from the rushing water. The formation of the canyon was just one of the fascinating stories that my group learned along the tour. “Everything is made out of water and sand,” the guide told us, adding that wind erosion had also formed some of the rock formations in the upper part of the canyon and that the silky smooth appearance deep inside indicated that the formations were formed by water erosion.

As the water started to dissipate or evaporate, sand dunes were formed, later going through a process of compression, and ultimately forming into the beautiful layers that exist in the Lower Antelope Canyon today. The Stories Are FascinatingĪs we started our tour, our guide told us that over 500 million years ago, the entire region around Antelope Canyon was underwater. Sandstone erosionPhoto credit: Cindy Barks 6.

Kens tours lower antelope canyon