We had read about the amazing vistas, scenic hikes, and incredible restaurants, but nothing about the ridiculous congestion throughout the city! At one point early on the day we were worried we were going to spend all day in our car with no parking spots and gridlock traffic. We worked through it with a little luck and some solid advice and ended up having a great day! We came away with some valuable lessons for planning our next trip to Sedona.
Jeep Tour
We did an early morning Jeep tour with Red Rock Western Jeep Tours on the Soldiers Pass Trail. Look ahead and you may find a Groupon for a Jeep tour ahead of your visit. If you have an unlimited budget the Pink Jeep’s Broken Arrow tour gets rave reviews, but be warned, it’s pricy! The boys loved the off-road adventure, and it was a nice departure from our hiking routine. Our driver, Rooster, was very informative with many interesting stories about the history and folklore of Sedona. If you decide to do a Jeep tour and also want to hike, leave your morning open to get to the trailheads before they’re full and do a late morning or afternoon tour.
Hiking Trails
We did not plan to hike 9+ miles today, but we did, and here’s what happened. After getting getting denied three times access to the Back O’Beyond road because the Cathedral Rock trailhead was full we finally scored parking at the Little Horse trailhead, after stalking someone that was leaving (this lot was also full). Little Horse wasn’t even in our list, but we were glad we did it. This is a 4-mile hike leading to incredible views from Chicken Point. Important to note, this is one of the stops on the pricy Pink Jeep Broken Arrow Tour, with some legwork you can get there for free!
We still wanted to get to Cathedral Rock and got some great advice from a park Ranger to try out the less popular Baldwin Trail. This is a non-touristy trailhead that can get you to Cathedral Rock, adding about 3 miles. After doing it this way, we would recommend it over the traditional route. The extra mileage was easy to moderate, taking you through a beautiful area with a large creek and many trees. Familiarize yourself with your route, many trails in Sedona are interconnected, so you’ll be connecting a couple trails to get to Cathedral Rock (recommend Baldwin to Templeton). Once Templeton Trail intersects Cathedral Rock your climb begins, and it’s a doozy! The most difficult part to navigate is a 50-60 degree crevice. We saw a lot of people stalling or turning around here, but our 4-year-old did it without a problem. He loved the “hands and feet climbing” as he calls it. Definitely have a parent behind little ones on these types of climbs (and in front on the way down). We saw many people only go part way up and decide to turn around, DON’T DO IT! You will be rewarded! Go all the way to the “end of trail” sign for a magnificent view all across Sedona!
Lessons Learned:
- Stay a few days. To truly get the most out of Sedona you need a few days. Stay in Sedona or surrounding area to allow you to get there early in the morning for easiest access to popular trails
- Arrive early! All the popular trailheads fill up fast, arriving early is you best bet to get parking for Devil’s Bridge, Cathedral Rock, etc. We noticed very small lots at most trailheads.
- Bring bikes! Even if you don’t have trail bikes you could use your regular bikes to get to the trailheads. If we had brought our bikes we could have left our car in the first spot we found and biked to the trailheads or restaurants. Around 2:00, Google maps estimated it would take 1.5 hours to go 4 miles through town.
Best time to visit:
Visit anytime, but be aware of busy tourist season, although it seems all the time is busy in Sedona these days! It will be colder withe chances of snow in the winter, but possibly less crowded (the Jeeps have heated seats and operate year round)!
Where we stayed:
We did a day trip from our VRBO rental just outside of Phoenix! While we loved this property for our stay in Phoenix, i would highly recommend staying a couple nights in Sedona or close by. It would make it much easier to arrive in the early morning if you’re close vs. a two-hour drive.
Other things to do:
Popular trails we didn’t get to due to traffic and lack of time: Devils Bridge, Bell Rock, Boynton Canyon, Fay Canyon, Bear Mountain, the Subway and Birthing Cave. The AllTrails app is a great resource for looking up hikes, reading about them, and saving by location.
If your staying near Phoenix you can check out our Camelback Mountain post for a challenging climb!
