To celebrate our 10th Anniversary, Batya and I drove up to Sedona for a few days of hiking.
Signs throughout Sedona warned that trailhead parking lots were full and that we should take a shuttle, but we ignored them and didn’t have any trouble finding parking near the trailheads.
On our first day, we followed West Park Ridge Drive, a washboard dirt road, to its end, at 34.888, -111.768. A parking pass is required. We were hiking in the Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness, a 47,195-acre wilderness area within the 1.856-million Coconino National Forest.
The parking lot provided a nice view of Sedona’s Ship Rock:
Ship Rock
We were hiking counter-clockwise, in a roughly 5-mile loop. From the parking lot, we took the Cibola Pass Trail for 100 yards, and then veered right onto the Brins Mesa Trail.
Red rock formation
While not identifying the trail, this sign let people know where they were in the national forest:
Forest sign
The hike provided many beautiful views:
Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness
The trail became steeper, though it never became too challenging.
Brins Mesa trail
Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness
Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness
About halfway through our hike, we left the Brins Mesa trail and turned onto the Soldier Pass trail. We had read about a side hike to a Soldier Pass cave and decided to add that to our hike. The trail actually didn’t seem to be marked, but many other people were hiking that day and led us there:
Soldier Pass cave
The cave wasn’t very deep; more like an alcove in the red rock.
Batya sitting in Soldier Pass cave
Charlie in Soldier Pass cave
We returned from the cave back to Soldier Pass, and continued on. We soon arrived at the Seven Sacred Pools:
Seven Sacred Pools
The next stop on the trail was Devil’s Kitchen sinkhole:
Devil’s Kitchen sinkhole
After the sinkhole, we turned off Soldier Pass trail, taking the Jordan Trail for a few minutes, and then the Cibola Pass trail, which led us back to the parking lot.