Sedona, Arizona, United States
In planning out an itinerary for Rodrigo’s visit, I decided
to include a day in Sedona, a beautifully situated town less than an hour south
of Flagstaff, where we were staying for two nights. Sedona is sometimes
described as one of the most beautiful towns in the world, but that’s more for
its location surrounded by spectacular red rock formations than the manmade
environment. Sedona is a place that attracts people with a lot of money, as
evidenced by golf resorts, gated communities, day spas, art galleries, and
expensive shops and restaurants. It also has spiritual significance for some,
there supposedly being multiple “vortex” spiritual energy centers in the area.
Surprisingly, Rodrigo had not previously heard of Sedona. It
was surprising to me because he is very well read about travel and I assumed he
would have known about it. I spent a
week in Sedona at a timeshare trade in November 2020 and did many of the best-known
hikes in the area during that week. One
exception, though, was climbing Cathedral Rock. I suppose that may be because Cathedral
Rock is more of a climb that involves scrambling on rocks rather than just a
traditional hike of the two-legged variety.
Anyway, I prioritized it as our first activity in Sedona. From the
parking area, which one must now take a shuttle bus to from a more distant
parking lot, it is supposedly less than seven-tenths of a mile to the saddle
high on the rock, but it seemed like much more than that because the hike
required significant stretches of scrambling on slickrock. It was quite a lot
of fun and the views from the saddle made it worthwhile.
Supposedly Cathedral Rock is one of Sedona’s vortexes of spiritual
energy. Our next stop was another one of
those, the vortex at the entry to Airport Mesa. Sedona’s small airport is situated
on a flat-topped mesa with good views in all directions from its edges. In 2021
I did a circular hike around the mesa’s perimeter, but this time we just drove
up to the viewpoint and then hiked back to the supposed vortex. Rodrigo had
bought some crystals as gifts and performed a little ceremony to try to
energize the crystals.
We then drove around the area to try to find some of the better
picture spots around Sedona and ended the day with a hike to Bell Rock and Courthouse
Rock for sunset. Bell Rock is another potentially challenging climb, but I
determined we wouldn’t want to get stuck up there past sunset and descend in
the dark. Overall it was a good day and I managed to cross Cathedral Rock off
my hiking bucket list.
2025-05-22