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We have seen tons of questions about whether it is possible to get the best out of the highlights around Page in one day. Guess what? It is! We have done it and didn't feel rushed. However, you need to plan meticulously and shouldn't do a one-day roundtrip.
In this article, I will tell you how you can visit the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, the Lower Antelope Canyon, as well as kayak into the water-filled part of the Antelope Canyon from Lake Powell all in one day.
That being said, you should start your day at the Grand Canyon, ideally camping inside the park and spend the night in the Page area. There is one big piece of information regarding time zones in Arizona; we were not aware of it. No one told us, and we hadn't read about it anywhere, which could have saved us a big scare and confusion. So we would like to tell you in advance to have peace of mind while hitting the road.
This article is day 6 of our 15-day road trip itinerary through the Southwest of the US and California. Click on the yellow 'Show Entire Route' tab, to view our in-depth guides to each stop for an even greater insight for your own road trip through the Southwest and California.
Experiencing the sunrise at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon
This itinerary starts with a very early wake-up call at the Grand Canyon. If you haven't read our Grand Canyon adventures the previous days yet, be sure to do so. We got up at 4 am to leave our campsite at Mather Campground and drive to the Yavapai Point at the South Rim to witness a peaceful and magical sunrise at 5 am. The timing depends on the time of year you are traveling. We were on the road at the end of April.
As so often anywhere in the world, sunrise is the time to experience the most magnificent natural attractions with so much more peace than during the day or at sunset. You will always encounter a few photographers and other active souls, appreciating waking up in the early hours.
After the sun had risen, we continued to drive east along the Desert View Drive, making multiple stops at the upcoming viewpoints and eventually exiting the Grand Canyon National Park to the east at around 7:30 am.
Driving the US Highway 89 north to the Horseshoe Bend Parking Lot takes about 1.5 hours, and you get to see the continuous cracks the Colorado River draws into the flat desert lands.
Marveling at the Colorado River at the Horseshoe Bend
When pulling up to the parking lot at Horseshoe Bend, you still have to walk 800 meters (0.5 miles) one-way to reach the rim, which will take you about 20 minutes. This little stretch is quite hilly, rocky, and sandy, so don't wear your flip-flops because it only looks like a short walk.
There are plenty of different opinions on when it is the best time to visit Horseshoe Bend. There are actually blog posts on its own just to answer that question and still not finding an answer, as all experts on the different travel forums out there express a different opinion. They mostly talk about the lighting and the canyon and river being in the shade. This again depends on the season and the hours of sunrise and sunset.
We laid our eyes onto the Horseshoe Bend at 9:50 am and had a great experience. Of course, we were not the only ones there and yet had enough freedom to roam to yet again take in the depth of the canyon and take the pictures we wanted to take. We stayed a little longer to observe 'life' on the river, as a few smaller boats made their way around the bend.
How to experience Antelope Canyon even when the tours are sold out?
The entrance to the Lower Antelope Canyon tour is only a 15 minutes drive away from the Horseshoe Bend parking lot, so we arrived just in time for our pre-booked 11:50 am tour with Dixie Ellis, as they ask you to check-in 45 minutes in advance.
How did we decide to discover the Lower and not the Upper Antelope Canyon? And how did we manage to book a tour, even though the tour operators homepage said our day and timeslot we wanted was sold out?
Let's dig deep into some details here to save you some time and confusion about the ins and outs of this famous slot canyon.
The Antelope Canyon is not a National Park and can't be visited on your own terms. The only way to see it is to book a tour with the licensed local Navajo tour operators.
Upper Antelope Canyon
There is the more famous Upper Antelope Canyon, which is shaped like an 'A', which allows the famous light beams in primetime, usually between 10:30 am and noon. Due to its shape, the canyon is also darker. This is the only canyon for which photography tours are being offered. The Upper Antelope Canyon is also the more expensive option.
The tour fee ranges between US$62 and US$88, depending on the time of day and the tour operator. Tours only run every 1.5 - 2 hours and last 1 - 1.5 hours. There are four different tour operators:
- Antelope Canyon Tours
- Adventurous Antelope Canyon
- Antelope Canyon Navajo Tours
- Antelope Slot Canyon Tours
Lower Antelope Canyon
The Lower Antelope Canyon is shaped like a 'V', allowing more light to fill the tighter slots. As the word describes, this canyon is actually underground, and you will have to climb some staircases to get in and out. Everything is quite tight, so if you have claustrophobia, this might not be the best option for you. On the other hand, a lot of people describe it to be the more fun canyon, as it is winding and narrow and quite adventurous.
You are not allowed to bring any bags or backpacks, also no fanny packs or hydration backpacks. Nor are you allowed to bring any extra camera equipment, like a tripod or selfie stick or your GoPro. You are required to wear closed shoes.
The tour fee ranges between US$40 and US$50, depending on the time of day and the tour operator. Tours run every 30 minutes and last 1 - 1.5 hours. There are two different tour operators:
Upon our research, we quickly decided that we preferred to discover the Lower Antelope Canyon due to its tightness and better light.
One thing you need to be aware of is that the popularity of the Antelope Canyon has gone crazy over the past years, and tours book out extremely fast, especially for those midday time slots.
We started planning our road trip at the beginning of January to visit Antelope Canyon at the end of April. As you can tell, following this itinerary, we needed (and wanted 😉) a midday time slot.
Well, tough luck! For the day we were going to be in Page, all slots between 11 am and 2 pm, the time window that fitted our itinerary were sold out. We were bummed and disappointed as this should have been another highlight of our road trip. We couldn't miss this!
Well, we didn't give up that fast and continued to research. This was when we discovered Dixi Ellis offered combined tours - combining the regular 'hiking' tour of the Lower Antelope Canyon, with a kayaking tour on Lake Powell, discovering the Antelope Canyon from the water.
Since we love kayaking, this was a jackpot for us, especially because, when booking a combo, you will have access to tour slots that individually are sold out, and thus we were able to get our 11:50 am ticket. This is a great marketing game by the tour operators, and it totally worked on us, as individually, the tours would cost US$40 for the Lower Antelope Canyon and US$99 for the kayaking tour and together as the combo we paid US$175 each.
Well, the little extra was worth it for us, and we also got to discover a 'off the beaten path' area of the canyon.
The tour through the Lower Antelope Canyon was the only time during our road trip where we felt like tourists. Due to its popularity, there are a lot of people waiting for their tours and it feels like a mass herding of people.
Would we still recommend you to do it? Absolutely! As the experience is quite special and there are always ways within the group (be the first or last) that allow you to have some more space.
Our guide, like all guides, was an indigenous Navajo and explained a lot of the history of the canyon. She also explained to us why you are no longer allowed to visit the slot canyon alone. There are several reasons:
- To protect the canyons and delicate sandstone.
- Unfortunately, there has been a few deaths by storms surprising the tours. This area is known for flash flooding. So some tourists have not had enough time to exit the canyon before the water gushing down the slot swept them against the rocks.
- To benefit from its popularity. This canyon is one of the biggest income sources for the Navajo tribe.
One other thing our guide explained to us at the beginning of the tour is how to set our camera settings to achieve these intense orange colors you see when doing research of the canyon online. Indeed the camera settings make a huge difference as you can see in the picture below, and the secret (if you are not a pro) is to set it on cloudy mode and 200 ISO.
At the end of the tour, she also gave us a sand demonstration, showing and explaining to us how the different layers of the canyon were formed from the Navajo sandstone and mixture of flash floodings.
Kayaking the Antelope Canyon at Lake Powell
The tour of the Lower Antelope Canyon finished around 1:15 pm. We then drove to the offices of Kayak Lake Powell and learned that our tour would only start 3:30 pm.
We used those couple of hours to refill our grocery stock at Walmart just outside of Page and to have a quick lunch.
Alternatively, should you not need to go grocery shopping, I would recommend you take the short drive to the Glenn Canyon Dam Overlook.
Once ready to kayak, we followed our guide from the Kayak Lake Powell office to the Antelope Point Launch Ramp. From there, we started kayaking into the Antelope Creek/Canyon, which allowed us an entirely different perspective.
This tour is not overcrowded at all, and we were the only kayaking group in the Antelope Creek for the entire 2.5 hours we were on the water. We pretty much kayaked all the way to the point where the creek turns dry and where a few hundred meters inland, the slot canyons can be marvelled at. It was an exciting and peaceful tour. If you have the time or need to do it to get those Lower Antelope tickets; we can highly recommend it.
Where to camp at Lake Powell
From the Antelope Point Launch Ramp, we drove about 30 minutes to our campground of the night (the last one we had reserved in advance) at Wahweap, crossing the Glenn Canyon Dam.
Upon arrival, the reception was already closed, and we found a note telling us where our campsite was. The Wahweap RV & Campground was one of our favorites during our trip. We had lake views with no other campers in front of us; in general, the campground was quite empty. We simply enjoyed a magical, peaceful night with a campfire.
The next morning we made the most of this amazing spot that we got and enjoyed a delicious breakfast just after the sun had risen.
Time zone changes within Arizona
While driving from the Grand Canyon to Horseshoe Bend, we experienced a somewhat bigger confusion and scare. Since you have to book the Antelope Canyon tours in advance, we had carefully calculated how much time we would need and had booked the tour at 11:50 am.
We planned to visit Horseshoe Bend and then head to Antelope Canyon for our tour. Our day was running smoothly, and we were cruising along. Suddenly I peaked at the time, and it was one hour later!
We were so confused and wondered whether we had underestimated the distance and not paid attention that we had just driven for an hour. And of course, we started worrying that we will miss our booked tour, which was quite expensive.
After 5 minutes of slightly freaking out, I realized that the screenshot I had taken a few minutes ago on my phone about the research I had done for the Bryce Canyon, which we planned to visit the next day, showed a time one hour earlier than the phone and car clock said.
The next second we had a 4G connection. I started doing some research and found out that the area we were driving through was part of the Navajo Nation of Native Americans and had a different time zone than the rest of Arizona. Go figure.
This explained the quick jump in time, but of course, confused us even more about what time our tour would take place.
I quickly called our tour operator Dixie Ellis, and they confirmed to me that the tour would take place at the original time we had planned with, meaning the time zone we had left the Grand Canyon in.
So why does this happen, you might wonder?
Arizona is the only state of the US Mainland that does not have Daylight Saving Time.
When the legislation for Daylight Saving Time was introduced in the US in 1968, the state of Arizona voted against it and has kept it up ever since. The main reason was the high costs resulting in cooling homes in the evenings after work. Since Arizona is one of the hottest states in summer, the "extra hour of daylight" would only increase the costs of air conditioning.
So to simplify it here is an example taken from Wikipedia:
When daylight saving is not active, the time in Phoenix and Denver is the same (Mountain Standard Time), and both are one hour ahead of San Diego (Pacific Standard Time).
When daylight saving is active, the time in Phoenix (Mountain Standard Time) and San Diego (Pacific Daylight Time) is the same, and both are one hour behind Denver (Mountain Daylight Time).
However, the confusion we experienced resulted in the fact that US Highway 89, which we drove north to Page, is jumping between cell signals from regular Arizona Time (no DST), Navajo Nation Time (DST) and the Hopi Reservation Time (no DST), which is not part of the Navajo Nation but is geographically surrounded by it.
Are you still confused? Take a look at this map.
The best thing to do not to get confused is to bring a wristwatch or simply turn off the auto-timezone adjust on your phone. Just be aware of the time zones and keep track of your itinerary.
What to wear during your visit to the Page area
When experiencing sunrise at the South Rim at the Grand Canyon, you better dress up in warm layers, as desert mornings are chilly. The moment the sun comes out though, it gets hot fast. We kept our long pants on for the short walk to the Horseshoe Bend and regretted it afterwards, as it was already pretty hot and not even 10 am.
We changed into shorts for the Antelope Canyon and only swapped our hiking boots for flip-flops for the kayaking.
During all your stops, I absolutely recommend you always carry enough water with you. Even if it's short stops or places like the Antelope Canyon, where you are not allowed to take a backpack. You can, however, take a small water bottle with you.
For a detailed overview of what our layers consist of and what to pack in general for an active outdoor trip, take a look at our article: 'What to Pack for Your Next Active Campervan Trip'.
Which Antelope Canyon would you choose to visit? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
