Overnight 4 day Hiking Trip to Sedona, AZ

March 3-6. Tues.-Fri.  “Returning home is the most difficult part of long-distance hiking; You have grown outside the puzzle and your piece no longer fits.”  I had the opportunity to travel to Sedona with the RV park’s hiking club for 4 days of nothing but hiking.  WOW!  What a fantastic time I had!  Sedona is in the the northern Verde Valley.  Sedona's main attraction is its array of red sandstone formations. The formations appear to glow in brilliant orange and red when illuminated by the rising or setting sun. The red rocks form a popular backdrop for many activities, ranging from spiritual pursuits to the hundreds of hiking and mountain biking trails.  Sedona was named after Sedona Arabella Miller Schnebly (1877–1950), the wife of Theodore Carlton Schnebly, the city's first postmaster.

The first documented human presence in Sedona area dates to between 11,500 to 9000 B.C.  Around 650 A.D., the Sinagua people entered the Verde Valley.  The Yavapai came from the west when the Sinagua were still there around 1300 A.D.  Some archaeologists place the Apache arrival around 1450 A.D.  The Yavapai and Apache were removed from the Verde Valley in 1876, to the San Carlos Indian Reservation.  About 200 Yavapai and Apache people returned to the Verde Valley in 1900 and have since intermingled as a single political entity although culturally distinct.  The first Anglo settler, John J. Thompson, moved to Oak Creek Canyon in 1876. The early settlers were farmers and ranchers. Oak Creek Canyon was well known for its peach and apple orchards.  Some parts of the Sedona area were not electrified until the 1960s.  Sedona played host to more than sixty Hollywood productions from the first years of movies into the 1970s.  Sedona began to develop as a tourist destination, vacation-home and retirement center in the 1950s. Most of the development seen today was constructed in the 1980s.

The easiest way to show the trip, is to describe each hike and then show several pictures.  I took over 500!  But,of course, I deleted many of them.  We had a 4 hour drive from Tucson and arrived just as it started to rain a little.  Along the way we could see snow on top of some of the bluffs.  A quick check-and lunch had us anticipating our 1st hike.

Day 1:  A little snow, yes! A little rain, yes! Cold, yes!  Lots of mud, yes!  The views, spectacular!  The experience along the edge of the mountain pushing us to our personal limits, priceless!  We were so glad we made the decision to go for the hike after the sun decided to barely peek through.  Like the previous post, it was wet, cold and muddy but well worth the hike that brought us around the mountain just as the sun was setting.  The sunset through the remaining clouds offered up colorful reflections on the majestic red rock.  So we washed our pants and boots, shook off the cold, and couldn't wait for the next day's hike.

Day:2  How can you possibly describe the scenic hikes in Sedona?  Beautiful, gorgeous, pretty, awesome, amazing, breath-taking, magnificent, stupendous!  I think that covers most of it!  We woke up to clear deep blue skies and cool temperatures that quickly warmed us as we switched into high hiking gear.  We were surrounded by the colorful red rocks with views from deep in the landscape leading into Boynton Canyon.  But we did need to put jackets back on due to the cold chill of the canyon at the end of our goal.  There was left over ice and snow!  The "End of the Trail" sign was up a group of rather steep rocks that we had to carefully pull ourselves up and over.  The view from the top was awesome but we still had to be very careful of the steep rock sheer drop off close to our resting spots.  But I faced my fear of heights AGAIN and made it!  Now I can wear my Girl Scout explorer's badge with pride!  The hike out was just as scenic and took us back into warm sun.  This hike was a bit long, so that hot shower felt really good, and we all headed out to a delicious Italian meal across from the hotel.  What a day!  Alright, next hike, bring it on!

Day 3:  Bell Rock, Courthouse Rock, Rabbit Ears, Cathedral Rock.  Somebody must have had lots of fun and imagination naming all the rock formations around Sedona!  The hike around Courthouse Rock and Bell Rock on our 3rd day was under more cloudless blue skies.  These two formations are the first Sedona icons you see when entering town from the South.  This trail was certainly the most scenic so far and conversations all along the trail were "Photo Op!", and "Group Shot!".  Other hikers on the trail were kind enough to offer to take a few of our group shots.  Plus, some of us got good at using our camera timers so we could all fit in the pictures.  Of course, our backdrops were spectacular views of the towering red rock or panoramic views of the Sedona skyline.   We had perfect views of Cathedral Rock, which is the number one icon of Sedona.  It is featured on all the brochures and postcards.  Every turn seemed to offer one beautiful view after another.  Boy, are we lucky to have been in a little piece of paradise!  Hiking in scenery like that just makes all your worries feel a world away.  It was another glorious day for a hike.  Carol, Joellen, Sandi, and Lois scheduled a hummer ride tour of the back country late that afternoon.  Then we all met at a Mexican restaurant for good food and great company. 

Day 3 afternoon:   Like the old 50s songs, "we were rockin' and rollin", "we were tossin' and turnin"!  The hummer ride for myself , Joellen, Sandi, and Lois was quite the experience!  Fun!  We were buckled in and when we hit the dirt road, we felt like we were marbles in a blender!  We went several miles outside of town through water, down the rocky, bumpy, dirt roads out in the back country of Sedona.  Our ride was supposed to have been for 2 hours, but I think our driver, Bonnie, saw how much fun we were having so she gave us almost another hour.  She was great about explaining the scenery and geology of Sedona.  We were also given some rare unknown tidbits about Elvis Presley when he made a movie in the area and saw one of Billy the Kid's hideouts.  We stopped at a spot deep into the ride that gave us a panoramic view of some of the colorful rock formations.  The late afternoon sun made the rocks that much richer in deep color.   Bonnie then took us to her favorite spot.  The spot was a natural spring that reflected the rock face and the deep blue sky.  What a secret gem of Sedona!  Beautiful photo op! The sun was setting as we returned to town and gave us more deep color accentuated by the sun's rays.  Typical of the desert, when the sun goes down, it gets cold, so we were pretty chilled with the wind whipping through the open hummer.  But it was worth every minute. What a great time we had!

Day 4:  Ahh...., our wonderful trip to Sedona was coming to a close.  Our last enjoyable hike was around the base of Cathedral Rock, the icon that immediately comes to mind when thinking of Sedona.  We checked out of the hotel early since we planned to leave Sedona right after our final hike.  This hike was a little shorter and all of us seemed to just take the trail at a slower pace extending our time as long as we could because we really didn't want to leave the beautiful trails of Sedona.  The rock formations at and around Cathedral Rock were just as colorful, red, and majestic as all the others we had seen previously.  At the end of the trail, our treat was seeing a couple of Javelina trotting down the path in our direction. Part of the trail also took us down along Oak Creek, where the water was rapidly flowing after recent rain storms. We took off the hiking boots to use on other adventures, piled into our vehicles, and headed home still talking about our hikes.  I think all of us would agree that we would have gladly hiked several more days!  The camaraderie of sharing the Sedona experiences was priceless and left us with fond memories that will not soon be forgotten.  What a wonderful job David did putting our trip together and I would do it again in a heartbeat!

Whew! It was so difficult to decide which pictures to post out of all the beautiful scenery in Sedona!  If I can manage it, I will certainly hike with the group in Sedona again next year.