Day 5
It wasn’t raining when we got up, but the sky wasn’t clear either. Still we decided to chance a sunrise. Since we were not sold on the outcome, we decided to pick a spot that didn’t actually require any hiking – a viewpoint near the trailhead to Devil’s Bridge.
Devil’s bridge by the way, listed as a “must-do” on every Sedona list. But we decided to avoid it. From what I understand Devil’s bridge is a rock platform that people get their pictures taken on. And there’s a line up just to do that. Even that morning, waiting for some sun rays to peek through the clouds, we kept getting distracted by the headlights of multiple shuttle buses driving to the trailhead, unloading people eager for the IG shot. No thanks!
After a cloudy sunrise we grabbed breakfast nearby at Layla’s bakery, and since it was still pretty early, we decided to go for another short hike.
We started heading down the trail to Chicken point, which is supposed to be another nice view point. There was no one else on the trail, so in my head was already celebrating having the view point to ourselves.
Well…clearly I forgot about one of Sedona’s favorite tourist activity: Jeep tours and ATV riding on rocks. We got to the viewpoint to found a circus of pink jeeps and muddy off-road vehicles, and people everywhere. It actually was pretty comical, and to be honest, those ATVs looked like they would be quite fun.
The view point was very nice nonetheless, and we went a bit higher up on the rocks to get away from the crowd. We could see Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte, which I had planned to run around on later.
Next, we headed back towards Sedona and spent a few hours at the Tlaquepaque Arts and Crafts Village. Its architecture copies that of an authentic Mexican village, with little streets and alcoves. Most of the shops are expensive art galleries, fancy gift shops and restaurants. It was definitely a higher-end experience from the two blocks of tourist shops at the main Sedona road junction.
After some window shopping and grabbing food in a Mexican restaurant, we headed out for one last outdoor activity.
We ran a roughly 8k loop at the base of Courthouse Butte and Bell Rock. A really fun trail and a nice way to shake out the legs after walking in and out of stores for the last few hours.
Day 6
Last day in Sedona, we hiked Bear Mountain as our final hike of the trip. This was an 8km out and back with about 600m of elevation gain, so definitely on the steeper side. When we got to the trailhead clouds obscured the top of the mountain, but we didn’t get too phased by it.
The hike had a mix of steep sections and sections across flatter grounds. When we got to the first plateau, we looked back and were able to see where we started down below.
Then we continued climbing into the fog. It actually made the hike pretty cool. Even though we missed out on views, it gave the trail a more intimate feel, especially since it wasn’t very busy.
We’re pretty used to running in the rainforest in BC, and fog, or being shrouded in clouds is a pretty common occurence, so this felt both familiar and new since the terrain was very different from home. There were very little trees, and mostly low, dry bushes on rocks.
We got to the end of the trail and couldn’t really see past the edge of the mountain (thankfully there was a sign at the top to tell us we had arrived).
As we made our way down the lower portion was clearing up a bit more, so we did get some views of the valley.
We had lunch at the car, then since it wasn’t very late yet, we decided to squeeze in one more short hike/cave sighting from a nearby trail.
That last cave was called “Birthing cave”.
