Technically, the title of this post isn’t 100% accurate.
We did spend roughly 48 hours in and around Page, Arizona. But I’m going to extend the time and distance covered in this post by about 6 hours and 70 miles (115 km), respectively, so I can also share some photos of our drive from Utah to Page.
Our morning began in Zion National Park, packing up our campsite and heading out the east entrance on the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway, otherwise known as Utah Highway 9.
Outside the park, we turned south on US Highway 89, which soon splits into two branches: the main highway and US 89 Alt. We opted for the latter, which is the slightly longer but more scenic route between Kanab, Utah and Page, Arizona.
Table of Contents
- The Grand Staircase
- Vermilion Cliffs National Monument
- The Wave
- Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
- Horseshoe Bend
- Antelope Canyon
- Food and Drink
- Time Zones
The Grand Staircase
Within an hour of leaving Zion, we had begun our ascent from the red rock desert to Le Fevre Overlook, elevation 6800 feet (2070 m). Here, an expansive view to the north reveals most of the layers of The Grand Staircase – a stepwise sequence of rock layers spanning hundreds of millions of years of geologic history and stretching across the desert southwest from the Grand Canyon – home to the oldest and lowest layers – to Bryce Canyon – home to the newest and uppermost layers.
From Le Fevre Overlook, we could see all the way to Bryce Canyon!
From this overlook, the road continues to climb, entering a beautiful ponderosa pine forest (which has since burned in the recent northern Arizona wildfires) and topping out at nearly 8000 feet (2440 m) of elevation, before beginning a steady descent into the Colorado River Basin.
Soon, we were back down to 4800 feet (1465 m) – roughly where our day began – and surrounded by red rocks once more.
Vermilion Cliffs National Monument
We were also now skirting along the southern border of Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, a largely wild and undeveloped section of the Grand Staircase named for its bands of deep red cliffs.
We were able to glimpse these cliffs from viewpoints alongside the highway, but I’d love to return someday and spend more time exploring this rugged, canyon-filled terrain.
The Wave
Perhaps the most famous landmark in Vermilion Cliffs is The Wave, a uniquely-striated red, pink, and white rock feature that can only be visited by obtaining a permit, driving a rough dirt road, and hiking approximately 6.5 miles (10.5 km).
Unfortunately, despite entering both the advance and two-day-before lottery, we were not awarded a permit for this hike. We’ll keep trying, though, and hopefully we’ll be returning to this area someday in the not-so-distant future.
Photos and more information about visiting The Wave can be found here.
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
After exiting Vermilion Cliffs, we entered into a narrow arm of the adjacent Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, an expansive NPS-managed area that encompasses Lake Powell. This would be our home for the next two days, though our campground was not in this section of the rec area.
We did, however, make a couple stops on our way through.
Marble Canyon/Navajo Bridge Interpretive Center
Stop #1 was at Marble Canyon, which is impossible to miss as the highway crosses it on a very high bridge. The Navajo Bridge was built in 1929 and remains the only vehicle route across the Colorado River for 600 miles (965 km)!
However, the original bridge eventually became unable to handle the volume and size of vehicle traffic. A new bridge, nearly identical in design to the old one, opened in 1995. The original bridge remains open for pedestrian traffic, so we parked at the Navajo Bridge Interpretive Center and, despite the blazing sun and 95°F (35°C) heat, walked all the way across.
If you don’t like heights, don’t look down while you’re walking or driving across. You’re 467 feet (142 m) above the river!
For us, it was absolutely worth braving the heat, not only for the views, but because perched on the bridge struts – and occasionally soaring back and forth between them – were two California condors!
From a distance and with only my phone as a camera, I wasn’t able to capture them. But seeing these large birds in the wild, especially knowing their remarkable comeback from the brink of extinction, is an experience that will be forever imprinted in my mind.
Lees Ferry
Adjacent to Marble Canyon is the turnoff to Lees Ferry. This paved road is the only one within Glen Canyon that descends to the level of the river. Along the way, we passed some unique balanced rocks, a couple river access sites, and an old ranch. There is also a boat launch and campground here.
Lees Ferry is named for John and Emma Lee, who homesteaded here at the junction of the Paria and Colorado Rivers in the mid-1800s and began operating a ferry that was, at the time, one of the only crossings of the Colorado River in this area of Arizona.
The Lee family also built the Lonely Dell Ranch and planted an orchard. Today, some of the ranch buildings remain and the fruit trees, with the original ditch irrigation system, still bear fruit. Visitors can pick up to 5 lbs (2.2 kg) for personal consumption. Sadly, we were about a week too early for apricot season and all the other fruits wouldn’t be ripe for at least a month.
Lake Powell/Glen Canyon Dam
From Marble Canyon and Lees Ferry, it was about a 45 minute drive up and around on US 89 to the Glen Canyon Dam, which forms the second largest manmade lake in the United States: Lake Powell. It took 17 years from completion of the dam for the reservoir to fill to capacity, and the lake and dam now produce power that is distributed to seven states.
A bridge – the largest arch bridge in the world, in fact, when it was built in 1959 – crosses the Colorado River immediately downstream from the dam. The pedestrian walkway along the side provides some of the best views of the dam.
Adjacent to the dam is the Carl Hayden Visitor Center. We stopped here to learn more about the dam, the Colorado River, and Lake Powell, and also to view the dam from the back porch.
Our final activity in Glen Canyon was a boat tour of Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam. This tour departed from the Wahweap Marina and wove through the twisted waterways of Wahweap Bay and then down the Colorado River to the dam.
Our captain narrated parts of the journey, and we were able to spend most of the tour on the upper deck of the boat enjoying the views of Lake Powell and chatting with the other captain onboard.
While this boat tour wasn’t our ideal plan for the day – we’d been hoping for either a permit for The Wave or the boat tour to Rainbow Bridge – it was a nice way to wrap up our time in Glen Canyon.
Wahweap
It’s not quite time to wrap up this post, though, as there are still a few pieces of our trip to touch on. Next up is Wahweap, which is the most developed site in the southern half of Glen Canyon.
We spent two nights at Wahweap Campground, which offers coin-op showers and laundry as well as over 200 campsites. We stayed in the tent area, and while we had a great view from our campsite, it was hot and sandy and far from my favorite place we’ve ever stayed. More and more, it seems that campgrounds devote their best sites – which in this case included the ones with trees and shade – to RVs and toss the tent campers into the crappy outskirts.
I would not stay here again. But the sunsets sure were gorgeous!
Hiking
While predominately a boating destination, there are some hiking opportunities in Glen Canyon. We took advantage of two of the shorter ones in the Wahweap area one morning.
The Beehive Trail is located just north of Glen Canyon Dam at Beehive Campground. The trail is a 2 mile (3.2 km) lollipop loop, though we elected to only hike about half of it. We headed counterclockwise around the loop and took the marked spur trail out to a viewpoint of the Beehives.
From here, we returned to the main trail and took a shortcut across the slickrock to the other side of the loop and returned to the trailhead. I’m sure we missed some things by skipping the second half of the trail, but it was already getting hot and we had one more hike to do before our tour.
Hike #2 was the Hanging Garden Trail, located just off the highway on the opposite (east) side of the Glen Canyon Dam. The trail travels about 0.6 miles (1 km) through the desert to an oasis tucked away beneath a rock overhang.
Hanging gardens form when sandstone layers sit atop a less porous layer of rock. Water easily seeps through the sandstone, but when it hits the harder layer it is forced out through cracks in the rock and emerges as a spring.
Here, moss and ferns and tiny orchids thrive! It was so different from anything else we saw in Glen Canyon.
Also, for lack of a better place to put it, here’s a photo from our brief jaunt out to Antelope Point, one of the only places in the Rec Area with access to the lake (on foot; you can’t drive all the way down).
Horseshoe Bend
Though it’s technically within Glen Canyon, I’m giving Horseshoe Bend its own section, because access to this instagram-famous site is administered by the city of Page.
We pulled into the parking lot mid-afternoon and, despite the scorching desert heat, it was absolutely packed. We paid our $10 admission (good for the day, though it does not allow you to leave and come back), parked, grabbed our water bottles, and set off for the roughly 1.2 mile (2 km) roundtrip hike out to Horseshoe Bend.
The trail is wide, flat, and gradually downhill, with a slightly steeper grade right at the end. I was still limping a bit from my earlier calf injury, so it took us longer than normal to cover the distance. But soon we were approaching the edge and glimpsing Horseshoe Bend with our own two eyes.
I imagine many of you have seen images of Horseshoe Bend before. If you have, it’s probably easy to understand why it’s so famous. And so crowded. What my photos don’t show is the roughly 150 other people who were there with us, and that’s not counting all the people we passed on the trail.
Luckily, it’s expansive enough that there’s room to spread out. And everyone was pretty good about taking turns in the best photo spots and offering to take photos of each other.
I’m glad we went. That being said, this is not a place I feel the need to pay to see again.
Antelope Canyon
Of course, no visit to Page is complete without a tour of Antelope Canyon. Along with The Wave and Horseshoe Bend, Antelope Canyon is the other instagram-famous site in the Page area. And, like Horseshoe Bend, this one is also on the verge of being loved to death.
There are two sections of Antelope Canyon – Upper and Lower – and both can only be visited on a guided tour. Tours are offered by about a half dozen Navajo Nation-owned tour companies based out of Page.
We opted for a tour of Upper Antelope Canyon, which I will be recounting in much more detail in the next post. For now, I’ll just say this: Upper Antelope Canyon is a magical place. I’m glad we visited. But the tour itself was crowded, rushed, and overpriced.
Food and Drink
Since we were camping, we ate most of our meals at our campsite. However, after our Antelope Canyon visit we stayed in Page for the afternoon and hit up the town’s only brewery: Grand Canyon Brewing + Distillery.
We walked in the door, and right away I knew I was going to love this place. It’s a large facility with a rustic vibe; wooden furniture, bar stools made from polished logs, etc. We ordered two flights and food – a hatch chili chicken sandwich for me and a chicken caesar salad for my husband – and really enjoyed our leisurely afternoon here. We also brought a 6-pack of their delicious prickly pear wheat ale home with us!
Time Zones
And lastly, let’s talk time zones, because it is a constant source of confusion for visitors to Page.
Arizona does not observe daylight savings time (DST). However, Utah and the Navajo Nation, which spans much of northern Arizona, do. Therefore, from early March through early November, Arizona is one hour behind Utah and the Navajo Nation.
Page is in Arizona but not in the Navajo Nation, so it does not observe DST. However, Utah is just a few miles away, and the Navajo Nation is even closer. For us, camped at Wahweap, we were less than half a mile from Utah – close enough that our phones would sometimes ping off a nearby tower and change back to DST.
This wouldn’t have been a problem, except both our Glen Canyon Dam and Antelope Canyon tours were operating in Arizona Time (AZT). We found ourselves frequently googling “what time is it in Page Arizona” just to be sure.
Moral of the story: if you’re staying in Page, Arizona, and you have tickets or reservations for anything, make sure you know (a) what time zone the tickets are in, (b) what time zone you are in, and (c) what time it actually is.
Or you could forgo scheduled events entirely, ignore the clock, and lose yourself amongst the red rocks and blue water and awe-inspiring scenery in and around Page, Arizona.
Up next: chasing sunbeams in Upper Antelope Canyon
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