After Desert View succumbed to the darkness we headed south to Sedona. There too the stars eluded me another night.
On Friday morning we headed under overcast skies to Cathedral Rocks. Sam and I hiked all the way up to the “saddle” point and back.
Then we headed to Bell Rock, where our vertical ascent was stopped by rainfall. Sam’s descent was enabled by grabbing a cactus for leverage. That didn’t quite work out as planned as she had to spend a while painfully plucking out needles from her swollen palm.
Knowing that the rain would only last an hour or so we refueled and headed to Devil’s Bridge.
The hike to the bridge was described more than once by people coming back from it as “very vertical” and difficult.
Sam and I somehow lost the trial (mom and dad didn’t come that far) and went straight up the hill, but still didn’t find it that difficult. On the way down we found the proper stone stairway leading up to the bridge. I’d classify it as an extremely easy hike compared to the Grand Canyon.
After hiking more than any other day on the trip (about 13 miles), we retired to Mariposa Grill for a birthday dinner for my father.
On our last day in Sedona, it snowed in the morning, so we hurried to all the viewpoints to take photos of the mist on the snowy peaks.
Afterwards, we took coldwater “Scenic” road, which turned out not so scenic but took us back to red rocks state park.
We walked a few miles around red rocks state park, visiting Eagle’s Nest and observing a family of deer.
On the way out of the Sedona area, we stopped at a few more viewpoints before chasing the rain to Phoenix.
