Hidden Cathedral

Slot canyons – narrow passages between soaring sandstone walls – are rare natural beauties. Only a tiny handful of places in the world have the right combination of desert, geology, and flash-flooding to carve out the earth so precisely. In the U.S., these intricate mazes of light and shadow are concentrated in the high-elevation desert along the border of Utah and Arizona. Each slot canyon is a little different – some are tame with the distance between the palisades never narrower than just a few feet, while others are treacherous, filled with giant boulders to scramble, ice-cold pools to swim through, and walls so narrow that the average hiker can’t fit through without turning to the side and sucking in the gut.

While exploring a series of canyon passageways, I came across this series of “columns” that stood aligned much like the columns in a gothic cathedral, creating a sense of reverence from the mystic light from above.

Location: Antelope Canyon; Page Arizona.