Three days of hiking and climbing in Sedona - Eileen's Travel and Mountain Adventures

Last Wednesday, Jim and I headed to Sedona, Arizona to get some early season hiking in and enjoy some sunshine. Unfortunately we seemed to have taken the Seattle weather with us.

Unknown to us, I happened to book the only hotel in town with a straight on view of Capital Butte. It immediately became a high priority to climb it before we left.

After checking into our hotel room and picking up groceries, we took a look at our upcoming weather forecast, Day 1: heavy winds, Day 2: heavy rain, Day 3: sunshine. We would be waiting until our last day to attempt Capital Butte.

For our first day, we picked a few hikes that would keep us out of the heavy winds. What better than a canyon hike? Good thing we threw in some warm clothes before we left home because our hiking day started at 43 degree with brutally cold winds.

After hiking through an old homestead, …

We turned into the canyon. It had beautiful high walls which keep us shielded from most of the winds. Every once in a while, the canyon would turn a certain way and the winds would come right at us. Needless to say, no pictures from this hike. I should have at least photoed the snowy basin near the end of the canyon. It was quit a surprise.

It was only 2pm when we finished the canyon hike so we headed back to the room for a late lunch and warming up.

For the afternoon, we decided to do the Soldier Pass Loop. We could easily do the loop before dark which was around 7pm. When we came to the Soldier Pass Parking lot, we saw the sign on the gate which said it closed at 6pm. We would need to stay on task.

The first part of the hike went right pass the Seven Sacred Pools. We had to stop for a few pictures.

After the Sacred Pools, we came to a side trail leading up to a cave. We had to go check that out.

There was a line to climb up into the cave. On a good weather day, this place must be a zoo.

Once inside the cave, it opened up into an unusual formation.

There was not a lot to explore inside the cave. You can see the scramble ramp to get inside the cave on the lower right side of this photo.

This photo was taken from the other end of the cave. It is starting to break away from the wall so in another 100 years it will most likely be a stand alone arch.

In an attempt to save some time back tracking to the main trail, we headed cross country toward Soldier Pass. Not the smartest move but that rarely stops Jim and I.

Desert cross country is different than Washington cross country travel. Less brush but the brush in the desert fights back.

Our risk did pay off and soon we found ourselves at Soldier Pass.

Once back on the loop trail, we started hoofing it back to the car. Some of these places are serious about their gate closing time.

At our finally junction, we had 30 minutes to go a mile. Piece of cake. We didn’t realize in that mile we would have to go over two small passes. We had already hiked 12 miles today and were starting get a bit tired.

We hit the car at 5:59pm and the gate was still open. We threw our stuff in the car and headed to the exit. As we were approach, the gate shut automatically. Argh! We pulled closer and the gate reopened to let us out. Yeah!! Disaster avoided.

The weather for our next day had much lighter winds but up to a quarter of an inch of rain. We could have stayed in Washington for this weather. As seasoned wet weather hikers, we headed out anyway.

We planned a loop hike around Cathedral Rock. We also wanted to scramble up to the high benches.

Since the heavy rains were expected later in the morning, we choose to do the scramble first. This turned out to be a great plan. Some of the scramble was on very polished rock. I would not want to be doing this in the rain.

We reached the high bench in less than an hour. After a little digging, we found a ramp that took us up to another higher notch.

Ledge leading to high notch on Cathedral Rock

Even with the impeding rain, the views were pretty amazing.

There was definitely no way we were getting any higher, even if we had a rope with us.

The traverse hike around Cathedral Rock was about 7 miles. After all the hurrying yesterday, we decided to slow down and enjoy the hike.

The rains came and went. More like times of heavy drizzle. It was great to see Cathedral Rock from every angle. Amazing formation!

Interesting view of Cathedral Rock from loop hike

By the time we got back to the car, we were a little wet but nothing major. The weatherman sure missed this one. Or so we thought. Around 6pm, Jim went out to pick up a pizza for diner. He about drowned getting from the car back to the room. We woke the next morning to ice on everything. Not the Arizona I remember.

We saved the climb of Capital Butte for our last day which had a full sun forecast. First we wanted to visit Devil’s Bridge. They share the same trailhead and Devil’s Bridge is a short hike.

We had been told to get there early so we could get a place to park. We arrived the trailhead at 7:15 and the parking lot was already full and there were cars lining both sides of the street. What the heck time were we supposed to get here to get a parking spot in the lot?

We hung out in the car for a little bit hoping for the temps to break 45 degrees. We finally gave up and head out.

The trail started out on a 4WD road with lots of clearance.

Hiking Trail (jeep road) to Devil’s Bridge

Once we turned off the Jeep road, we started climbing rock steps. It reminded us a lot of Angle’s Landing in Zion without the chains to hold onto and the exposure.

The trail flattened out from time to time giving people a place to rest. Those with too much energy built rock cairns.

We reached the top of the trail just 45 minutes after leaving the car. And we found all the people who got to the parking lot before us.

They were in line waiting to get a picture on Devil’s Bridge. We talked about leaving but decided we were only going to be here once. It was a beautiful day so we hung out. Luckily, we started talk to the lady in front of us. She was very interesting. An hour and a half later, it was time for us to get our picture taken. Neither Jim nor I have ever stood in line this long for anything. It was an experience.

We quickly hurried back to the trailhead. Not that we were late, we were both done with all the people. After a quick change into shorts and short sleeves, we headed up the scramble route for Capital Butte.

The route was so much fun. About the time that you thought you had reached an impassable cliff band, a weakness would show up and you would scramble up to the next ridge.

This was our type of vacation activity.

The climb had lots of route finding issues even though there were tons of cairns. So much of the mountain looked unclimbable. You had to hunt for the weaknesses. Eventually we found ourselves strolling across the summit ridge to the rocky summit.