There is a large interest in Antelope Canyon tours from Las Vegas, and Bindlestiff Tours is the choice to make. Over the years, the “Find Your Park” advertising campaign from the Parks Department has had large-scale success at driving visitors to National Parks in order to experience their beauty. There was a point where National Parks in the United States were seeing falling attendance records every year, and were facing the problems of getting funding for upkeep while ewer and fewer people were going each year. Couple that with ongoing pressures from industry and developers to encroach on public parks in order to exploit natural resources and you have a situation where something needed to be done in order to increase attendance and visits to these spaces in order to justify their existence. The Parks Department was very successful at driving visits to National Parks with their campaign, but the problem soon began that there were too many visitors at some parks and not enough at others. While parks like Zion saw unbelievable increases in tourism to the point of having lines for shuttles that were hours long, other parks showed little to no increases. One of the pushes that the Parks Department made was to increase interest in lesser known parks and protected spaces in order to alleviate traffic to Zion and the Grand Canyon. The interest in Antelope Canyon grew, and more and more people began to inquire as to what tours that operators like us offered that visited that area.
One thing that few people realize is that Antelope Canyon is not a National Park, and instead is a protected area that is owned by Navajo Nation. Over the years, the same phenomenon that actually created the beautiful slot canyon that makes the area so beautiful also proved to be too difficult to manage as far as tourism. Flash flooding from as many as five miles away are what created the canyon itself, and difficulty to predict flash flooding lead to several deaths of tourists within the canyon over the years. With an inability to keep tourists safe with regards to flash floods, the stewards of Antelope Canyon decided to only allow guided tours by approved tour companies. Because of the seriousness that tour companies take the potential dangers of flash flooding, the people who manage the area found that they could be trusted to make good decisions as far as heeding warnings to not tour the area on days when a flash flood is potentially possible in the area. This, combined with several other safety aspects that were installed within the canyon, has proved successful in saving the lives of those visiting the area.
For the reason of the agreement with Navajo Nation to not take groups into Antelope Canyon if there is a potential for flash flooding that day, as well as for the simple reason of the safety of our patrons, we offer tours of Antelope Canyon as part of our 3 day National Parks tour, understanding that there is a possibility that we would not be able to visit that particular area due to weather. If that were the case, we would make a substitution of another area or park. There is no way to predict the weather on a particular day when arranging a tour, so we choose to plan on visiting Antelope Canyon and giving a guided tour to you, but always realize that it might not be possible on the day you have booked.