Antelope Valley Slot Canyons

I’ve always wanted to tour the Antelope Valley Slot Canyons in Page, Arizona. Since The Wave in Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness was located only 35 miles northeast of the famous slot canyons, we convinced our friends to add this stop to our road trip before heading home to Southern California.

There are different portions of the slot canyons to visit, since most are on private Indian reservations, all visitors are required to be accompanied by a tour guide. After doing a bit of research on the different slot canyon tours, I decided to go with Ken’s Lower Antelope Canyon Tour because of the cheaper price and no advanced reservation was necessary.

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Trail Report: The Wave, Arizona

After spending a day hiking around Zion National Park, we spent another night in Hurricane and left early Sunday morning and headed towards The Wave, in Arizona.The drive from Hurricane to The Wave is about 2 hours. One thing we forgot to take into account was the time difference between Utah and Arizona, since this was before day lights savings time, we actually gained an hour going from Utah to Arizona and made it to the trail head around 7:30 AM. Once you turn off from Hwy 89 onto Red Rock Canyon Road, the road becomes unpaved and this last 10 mile stretch will take about 30 minutes depending on the road condition and weather. Based on our permit, a high clearance, 4WD vehicle came highly recommended but since there was no rain in the recent forecast, we decided to test out the road with our 2WD. The trail was surprisingly well maintained and luckily, we arrived at the trail head with no problems.

My recommendation for anyone who wants to drive a 2WD to The Wave is to check the weather forecast and make sure there is no rain predicted in the forecast. The  soil is fine and clayey on the road, with rain, it would be VERY easy to get stuck.

The Wave

The start of the trail, note the bright pink permit I had to hang off my backpack. Only 20 people are allowed on this trail per day.
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