Arizona: The Sensational Sedona
Sedona is all it’s reported to be and then some. The town of Sedona is extremely well maintained and one of the best tourist towns we’ve seen, with a meticulous attention to landscaping and very little deferred maintenance anywhere. Everyone and everything was amazing.
Our first stop was the Airport Mesa, which is reportedly one of the best sunset spots in town and a natural vortex. You may be wondering, like we were, what a vortex is 🤔 It’s a convergence or meeting of spiritual and/or magnetic energies. There is some philosophy and some science in the various definitions that range from deep meditation states to increased magnetic fields that can effect the setting sun’s light. Well, we will keep praying for a deeper sense of God while we enjoy our sunsets, cause they were awesome with the red and sandstone rock formations. We also had plenty of great vistas from Verde Valley, where we were camping, about 30min south of Sedona. The pups liked the hikes along the canyon out the back of our parking spots and the boys, particularly Robert enjoyed the red dirt and rocks 😎
Chapel of the Holy Cross was a cool but crowded stop. Recommend parking lower and walk up, there isn’t much parking up the hill.
Cathedral Rock was both a stunning visual playground of red rock, trees and bushes but also a rock scramble to please old and young… but the older members of our party may have struggled scrambling more than the others 😂 About 550 ft of the 740ft elevation change is all we could pull off due to time and bathroom needs but we didn’t lack for a challenging climb and some great views.
Slide Rock and Cottonwood Canyon are must see stops if you make it to Sedona. Just incredible scenic drive in/out and lots of fun water play and rock climbing along the river. We also found our first javelina in the apple orchard but they were shy. We were able to get a pic before they ran.
Montezuma’s Castle & Tuzigoot National Monuments offered us a field trip into the native Sinagua culture. Pretty amazing to see the adobe structures on the cave wall and to see the agricultural landscape around the Tuzigoot hilltop communities. There were other ruins on adjacent hill tops as well making a much more communal farming culture than we expected.
Deadman’s Pass, Subway Cave, Long Canyon Trail and the elusive Birthing Cave in the Secret Mountains. We got a number of miles in but planned on about 2-3 🤔 Vince’s GPS route to the Birthing Cave took us down Deadman’s Pass and to the opposite side of Mescal Mountain so we got a great view of Subway Cave and tracked back and around to Long Canyon Trail to find the Birthing Cave. It isn’t on a trail map but about 3/4 mile in there is a clear trail headed toward the mountain that ends at the Birthing Cave. This is reported where native women would come to give birth and is a sacred space. The boys asked… how did pregnant women get up here? Good question. We also avoided discussing how the cave resembled a birth canal 😳 while simultaneously appreciating the natural beauty of the area and the view a young tribe and his mom might have if they made it up to the cave.
Our sunset to Sedona included an amazing star filed sky above the distant Phoenix night lights. Impressive how far the light can influence the sky and why we look forward to some “dark sky” views at the Grand Canyon for the planetary alignment on Feb 28. We depart Sedona with some color filled memories that will endure until we return… which we will Lord willing ❤️
