Sedona
Sedona
Sedona, AZ, is one of the adventure hotspots in the wild wild west. The town itself is nice and cute with a number of art galleries and fine dining options around; however, the area surrounding the town is a haven for hiking and mountain biking which draws a multitude of adventurers here. Sedona lies in the middle of red rock country with an abundance of hiking and biking trails that take you to some amazing vistas and magnificent rock formations! This abundance of trails can be overwhelming, so do your research and decide where you want to go and what you want to see, then get yourself a good map (click to request map) and plan your route carefully to get the most out of your time in the area. My advice to you is to combine multiple trails together to form a hiking loop which will allow you to explore multiple places at once…So lets start:)
As I had only one day in the area, I designed 3 hiking routes, by combining trails together, to visit some amazing and iconic places and rock formations and they were all, to a great extent, easy hikes and all having their trailheads along State Route 179.
The 1st hiking route was designed to visit Cathedral Rock, one of the iconic monuments of the wild west. In order to witness this amazing feature, I combined both the Easy Breezy trail and the Cathedral Rock trail. This route isn’t a loop, instead, it is an in-and-back one. As I mentioned, all THs lie of 179, and from the moment you start driving along this route, you’ll realize the beauty of this red rock country and can’t wait to get out of the car and start exploring. Starting on the Easy Breezy trail, as the name suggests, it is an easy trail and will allow you to explore vast areas of this red rock country. However, you’ll only hike 0.3 miles on this trail and then switch to the Cathedral Rock trail, which is another 0.3 miles trail. Throughout your hike, you’ll be enjoying magnificent panoramic views around you, so don’t go too fast and take your time to admire this beauty.
Before you know it, you’ll arrive at the viewpoint of the Cathedral Rock and it’s a view to behold for this wild west icon.
The 2nd hiking route was aimed at visiting Courthouse Vista, but to make it more interesting, I designed an extended route and visited Bell Rock along the way. This is a bit of a long route, a total of 5.7 miles, but it is also easy hiking. For this route, you start at the Bell Rock Pathway TH near Oak Creek village and start by taking the Bell Rock Pathway (west) for 1.2mi until you reach the junction with the Bell Rock Loop. At this point, you can make a detour and visit Bell Rock via a 0.2-mile loop, then continue 0.7 miles till you reach Courthouse Vista.
All along these trails you’ll be blessed with beautiful country around you, so why not extend this route and enjoy the area more? And that’s what I did:) After admiring Courthouse Vista, take Llama trail for 1.4 miles, then combine it with Bail trail for 0.4 miles. After that, you’ll take Bell Rock Pathway for 0.5 miles till you reach the section you hiked at the start of this route and hike back to your car for 1.2 miles.
Lastly, the 3rd hiking route will take you to the most breathtaking rock formation around Sedona…THE DEVIL’S BRIDGE!!
Similar to the 1st route, this is an in-and-out route with a total length of 4.8 miles. You start by taking the Mescal trail for 1.4 miles, which is a bit tough, but the amazing views around you will make up for it!
The last part of this route will be along the Devil’s Bridge trail for 1.2 miles to the unbelievable naturally-carved rock formation of the Devil’s Bridge!! How nature perfectly carved this bridge is astonishing and will leave you to admire it yourself…SO ENJOY:)
