We arrived in Sedona in the middle of Labor Day Weekend. Route 89A between Flagstaff and Sedona was packed with campers and people enjoying the Slide Rock Area. We finally made it to our hotel and checked in just in time to watch a storm come through.
Sedona is a beautiful town just about 23 miles south of Flagstaff in Arizona. We had been before and enjoyed ourselves and we took advantage when we had the opportunity to return. Sedona is a great place for day hiking. On our prior visit we stopped at the Hiker House to get trail recommendations. These guys were great, they asked questions on what type of hiking we wanted to do and made recommendations based on that. They even gave us a couple recommendations on places to eat. We were ready to go this time as we still had our map and a few trail options from the last time. We started with the Jim Thompson trail and when combined with the Wilson Canyon trail it’s about 7 miles out and back. This trail had great views of the Brin Mesa. The trail was also pretty well shaded although the exposed areas got hot fairly quickly despite our early morning start.
We had dinner plans that night as part of a timeshare presentation. The food was pretty good and the group of people were fun. For part 2 of this event, we were picked for a cooking lesson for lunch the next day. Everything was laid out for you and the chef walks you through the steps for preparing your meal. Will did a good job sautéing our scallops and shrimp and we were stuffed. The next morning after our obligatory timeshare presentation, we headed up to the Oak Creek area to hike the West Fork trail. This trail is listed as one of the top 10 trails in the US. Supposedly, the trail is 3.3 miles one way, but I guess we were overachievers that day and managed to do 8 miles. It was a pretty trail. The wild flowers were in bloom and the trail was slightly sandy which provided great cushion for our feet. There are reportedly around 13 creek crossings, we lost count so I can’t verify that, but there were a number of them. We got to the end of the trail and talked to one couple that convinced us to go a little farther into what becomes a slot canyon. That was worth it for a little extra effort. There’s a $10 parking fee at the trailhead and the parking looks like it gets full quite often, so if it’s a weekend get there early. This hike was really well shaded as you are in a narrow canyon the whole time.
After the hike, we had enough time to stop down the road at the Slide Rock State Park. This park was once a homestead that included an apple orchard. Oak Creek river runs along side of the former homestead. Algae on the limestone rocks creates a slippery ride down the natural chute. Of course I couldn’t resist testing out the natural water slide. The water was ice-cold, but the slide was a lot of fun. Will decided, the water was too cold for him and didn’t try it. If you go, make sure to have water shoes. It makes walking around a little easier, although in spite of wearing water shoes I managed to slip right on in. Well, it made my decision as to whether I’d slide down or not easy as I was already wet. People also jump from a cliff that is about 10 feet high into a deeper pool of water. Didn’t give that a try, but it looked like a lot of fun as well. For parking inside the park it’s a $20 fee Mon-Thurs and $30 on the weekends in the summer for a car load of up to 4 people. Or you can take your chances and try to park along the road, walk-ins are $3/person. Stay away from going in the summer on weekends and holidays. As we witnessed just driving through the park gets too crowded and was actually full when we drove-by in mid afternoon.
Will had heard about a trail that was a 2 1/2 hour drive from Sedona that he wanted to try. It was the Granite Mountain Memorial Trail. This trail was built as a memorial to the 19 Hotshots that lost their lives while fighting the 2013 Yarnell wildfire. What we didn’t anticipate was how much hotter it was in that area. The trail itself is very exposed and being closer to Phoenix it was probably a good 10 degrees hotter than Sedona. About 1 1/2 miles in Will wasn’t feeling well and started showing signs of heat exhaustion. So, we decided that we should just pack it in and try this trail again some other time. This trail is a nice tribute to those firefighters with memorial plagues along the way about each firefighter. The trail to the observation area is 2.85 miles one way and about another half mile down to the site where they perished. This is a tough trail because it is so exposed and an elevation gain of about 1200 feet.
There was a silver lining for us in not doing the whole trail ,we made it back to Sedona in time to have dinner at Elote Café. We tried Elote on our last trip to Sedona based on a friend’s recommendation and because we were staying the Arabella hotel where Elote is located. We heard rumors that Elote was rated the 2nd best Mexican restaurant in the US. I’m not sure about that ranking, but I do know it’s extremely popular and the food and service have been excellent both times we have been there. This time I got the smoked pork cheeks and Will got the brisket enchiladas. Yep, just amazing.
We headed out the next morning to continue our journey west. We first made a stop at Montezuma Castle. This is a national monument outside of Sedona. The castle is a cliff dwelling where an ancient tribe of Sinagua Indians lived up until about the early 1400’s. This was a nice stop on our way out-of-town. We have the National Park’s annual pass, so we didn’t have to pay the entrance fee. There is a visitor center and a paved walkway from which you can view the ancient dwellings. They stopped allowing visitors to climb into the dwellings in 1951 because of its fragile state.
