Revised (again) on August 13, 2009.

“Hold on!” my dad yelled at me, grabbing me by the lapel just as the truck bounced upwards. I flew up, my head dangerously close to the metal support strut, and all I could do was hold onto my camera bag.

“I am holding on!” I roared back at my dad, and I fell down from where I had been floating just as the truck bounced into a small dip in the dirt road.

The seat caught me hard and I grabbed onto the railing on the side to keep from flying again. This railing held up a large blue tarp, and holding on, my teeth rattled with each jump.

At the beginning of this car ride, I thought the only purpose of the tarp was to protect from the sun. But now, the sun was nothing: it was such a small matter that I was confused that I had even worried about it.

This truck was heading on a dusty dirt road, descending into a small valley. Of course, to say it was a “road” would be a very sick joke. Nowhere would describe the unpaved place we were driving through much better.

“We gonna get there yet?” a man asked. I turned around, looking between the twelve people sitting with us.

“I dunno,” someone else answered.

On both sides, dirt rose up to around ten meters high. Trucks had driven on this path many times, and dips and humps had been made where cars had driven by in the past. No one had thought to build a road.

But this was the way it was to be, I thought, to experience nature. I squinted my eyes, trying to keep out the dust. Over twelve degrees warmer than the body temperature, I felt like I was sitting in a sauna.

The truck suddenly stopped, and I looked around. The valley had ended and the truck was surrounded on three sides by small walls of dirt and rock. Other trucks were parked nearby, the vehicles for other tours coming here.

How long we had to walk to get there, I did not know. I took a second look around, and that was when I saw it: a slim opening only a few feet wide had been revealed.

At that moment, I knew. It was the entrance to Antelope Canyon, Arizona.

Looking into the canyon from outside divulges a deep and mysterious darkness. Turning around and looking through the crack I had walked through, it is simply so vividly bright. The instant I step in, however, my eyes adjust, and that is when I can truly value the splendor.

The first thing I notice is that suddenly, I am no longer dripping in sweat. I stand five feet away from the entrance, and the temperature is almost twenty degrees cooler. It is almost completely dark.

The Navajo name for this place is Tse’ bighanilini, meaning “the place where water runs through rocks”. Indeed, it is the water flowing through (in some times of the year) that have worn away grain after grain of the swirling sandstone, forming this striking canyon.

“Welcome to Antelope Canyon,” our guide boomed. “I am from the Navajo tribe, and I am going to be your guide today. We will be stopping at several places of importance.” With that, he turned around and walked into the canyon.

It was extremely dark. We walk around a tight curve in the canyon, barely four feet wide. Around seven people carrying tripods (including me) and five people without squeeze through. We had attended a photographic tour, so finally when we arrived at an open spot, we all set up our tripods.

A bright patch was on the floor where the sun shown in. I had heard from many people that long-exposure photography was needed. Looking around, I wondered what to set my shutter to. The bright patch was pretty bright, but the area around was very dark.

“Four seconds,” a man next to me muttered. Smiling, I set my shutter to four seconds.

A bald man to my right knelt by his top-of-the-line camera, attached to a tripod. It was a top-of-the-line camera. He looked at me. “You’re going to love this.

“Ready?” the guide asked us, holding a shovel.

“Yeah, we’re all good,” people replied. I looked around, confused.

Then the guide flung sand into the air, and I clicked the shutter. Why wouldn’t I? It felt like something was going to happen, and sure enough, as I clicked, I heard several other clicks.

The sound of several cameras clicking at the exact same time is one I will never forget. The room was silent as each person awaited the result.

Then the shutter was released and the photo showed up. I looked into my photo and then I gasped.

The walls in my photo felt like melted iron, hot and red, smeared onto the walls in curves and cambers. A beam of light from heaven was in the center of my photograph.

And I knew that the sand had done all this: it had diffused the light around the picture. Without it, the canyon was dark. And it had created the beam of light from heaven by letting the sun shine through the sand, illuminating a column of light.

With each shot, I clicked the shutter, smiled at my photo, and clicked it again and again. There was no end to this goodness: it was like a buffet of chocolate: delectable, but only as long as you get to stay.

Sure enough, in minutes, the bright spot disappeared. I looked down, disappointed. I asked our guide, “Are we going to move on now?”

“No. The sun will come back.” he replied, flicking his eyes at me.

“Come back?” I asked, astonished.

“Yes,” the guide said solemnly, “the sun moves.”

And indeed, in fifteen minutes, I could only watch as the sun slowly moved in behind us, creating another beam of light, and in a minute, I turned my tripod around, taking pictures of this mystical second beam and the red clouds behind it. We had been chasing the sunlight.

And so, with each spot, we waited for the sun to arrive. In one place a small flat area appeared on the walls, and by throwing sand onto it, it created a sand waterfall. I could only watch (and snap a photo) as the poised waterfall cascaded downwards.

In another spot, the sun beamed in, and I took snapshots of heaven. Then, In many other canyons and caves I have been to, they have all been a stalactite-stalagmite type: slowly dripping their way out.

Those caves would stand out in that they were huge and with every huge column the size of several buildings, they show their power.

This canyon was different: it was washed out, creating the mesmerizing waves of color seen. The sun shone in, and when the sand was thrown, the cave would light up. The walls would begin to billow like silk, and paradise would shine once again.

The photo tour was two hours in length. When it at last ended, I looked through my photographs one by one, jovially smiling at each picture. Each photo had captured Antelope Canyon as if it were sheets of silk, billowing in the wind, and paradise beaming down from above.

Antelope Canyon truly was a marvelous place, and I can see why the Navajo nation tries to protect it. This is a resource that ought to last hundreds of years. This is a place I will want to come back to, and a place I will want my children to see. With every curl and camber, nature has again revealed herself and her beauty.

I will come back, Antelope Canyon. I will come back.

The photographic tour in Antelope Canyon is one of the best tours you can have: two and a half hours during the 12AM tour offers the best sunlight. The Upper Canyon is one of the most photographed in the United States.

The photos in this article have all been taken by me.