Encouraged by the promising weather forecast for at least the morning I got up early ... and bingo, it was really a beautiful blue sky, no clouds and plenty of sunshine already. Ken's open at 8 o'clock . get our horses saddled and of we go ... When I drove on Hwy 98 I realized that during my night's sleep it must have poured, still some small pools along side the road and a very clear-sighted view.

My plan for today was to enter the canyon from the exit to the entrance. Not only to tackle it the other way around as done yesterday. After due consideration and "playing" around with TPE (The Photographer's Ephemeris, an incredible helpful iPhone/iPad app to plan your photographic trips) I concluded that the light conditions must be excellent beginning at the exit point ...
 
When I arrived at Ken's Tours the guides were busy but almost no tourist were around, good for me, no traffic in the narrow slot canyon for some while. Today things were considered safe, photographers were allowed to go on their own. I purchased my pass and just wanted to go when a guide asked me to join in ... well, sure he certainly knows the canyon better than I do, let's team up. He agreed that it was a good idea to start in reverse order ...

I hope you can see from the picture set that it was a truly remarkable photographic session. Not only because of the very good weather and light situation what helped a great deal was the bad rain during the night. Because of the higher moisture level in the sandstone the colors were even more impressive. At the base of the canyon it became clear the quite some flooding must have happened during the night, walking was quite difficult because the water carried away the supporting sand. Ken's people had to work hard to get the canyon base back into a easier walkable condition by redistributing sand. Again something in favor of me - I could take pictures without be disturbed by others at all ...

In summery I had two exceptional days in the Lower Antelope Canyon despite all the worries ... Especially the second day (morning) was very special and attractive because of the moisture in the sandstone which helped a great deal to produce the extremely vivid color palettes ranging from deep purple over a wide range of red and orange to yellow.

At this point I would like to thank the folks from Ken's Tours as well, they are very friendly, helpful, supportive in any respect and know the canyon from insight out.