Geology
Slot Canyons
5 destinations along 5 roads
A slot canyon is cut by events, not by patience. The wash is dry most of the year; then a storm miles upstream drives a wall of sand-loaded water through it, and the channel deepens faster than its walls can widen. That ratio is the whole form. The rock barely matters — the San Rafael Swell and Burr Trail are cut in sandstone, Cathedral Gorge's narrows in lakebed clay, Anza-Borrego's in mudstone badlands. Antelope Canyon is Tsé bighánílíní, on Diné land and entered only with a Navajo guide. And the rain that carves a slot need not fall on you.