We Broiled In The Arizona Sun – Part II
The next day on 9/4, we threw on our swimwears 5 am in the morning and hurried to the nearby Wahweap Overlook for the sunrise.
Wahweap Overlook
- Fee : $30 per vehicle and $25 per motorcycle for 7 days pass
The view was dull and grey in the beginning but as soon as the sun showed up from the horizon, the land was quickly painted by vibrant warm colors.
There were other people and a dog at this look out spot when we arrived, but somehow they chose to leave right when the sun popped up, leaving this magical moment to no one but us to enjoy.
We made some sandwiches in the car and slowly drove to the water sport rental place.
WazSUP Kayak Rental
We picked this place to rent our gears for no specific reason, only because all other stores (only 2 in Page) were booked out a week before the holiday. Arriving at 6:48am made us the first group to get the kayak, the owner was nice enough to let us take it before the opening hour. I’ve never carried anything on my car top before, this mission sounds quite scary especially I don’t have a cargo rack, since tying down objects with foam protections works for other people we just believed there’s no reason it doesn’t work for us… until I realized my car only has two doors.
Owner : Humm… you just have to drive slower.
Antelope Point Launch Ramp to Antelope Creek
- Route : Out and back
- Fee : >>Click here to check<<
- Length : Lunch Ramp > Antelope Creek : 1 mile of paddling
- Length : Antelope Creek > dry end : 2 miles of paddling
- Length : dry end > Lower Antelope Canyon Entrance : 2.5+ miles of hiking
At the Antelope Point Launch Ramp there were already people setting up their boats and kayaks. 9:00 am wasn’t that early after all, but being under the sun in the morning didn’t spare me from almost having a heat stroke.
We went on this adventure with a huge bag of water and lots of food. I brought my Gopro instead of other equipment simply because I have zero trust of myself keeping them dry, I have no clue how Quentin could keep his phone intact, I had dropped my phone into the river in 2015, and lost the other one at Kelso sand dunes in 2017.
We dodged left and right under the shades down the creek toward the Antelope Canyon area. TT was very calm as usual, looking back this is maybe his 4th time on a kayak, this cute yellow life jacket was bought after his car accident in 2014, TT continues to grow and now this life jacket looks like an extremely uncomfortable cropped top.
After the creek ended, we dragged our kayak to the shore like everyone did and started to hike in from there. I didn’t see this hike coming and almost wore flip flops, that would be miserable.
Antelope Canyon is known by the Native American people of the southwestern United States as “The place where water runs through rocks.” Due to the threat of the Covid-19, Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon were shut down until further notice, this self kayak activity granted us not only a perfect social distance from others but also a peek of this incredible creation made by years of river running through it, wearing away sandstone.
Even though I visited The Narrows Trail in Zion National Park years ago, it was still exciting visiting this place. We walked back out from the canyon around 1:00 pm to retrieve our kayak, there were way more people than before, the creek lost its peacefulness and turned into a water park, occasionally smelling like gas.
To fulfill the swimming promise, we dragged our boat on to the sandy area once again after we were away from the Antelope Creek. I finally took off TT’s life jacket admitting to the fact that he can no longer comfortably fit into it, it’s time to move on.
Looking back, 4 hours of outdoor activities burnt us down fast, TT was completely exhausted too, I came up with an even crazier plan for tomorrow, I quickly had Quentin sign up for my horrendous ideas while he was almost not awake and wasn’t able to distinguish good from all the evilness.
Once again we fell dead asleep at 4:00 pm, happily knowing we are sheltered inside away from the heat.
- Same Trip Different Day:
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