Sedona, AZ - This Bear was a Bear

This morning was supposed to be the day we hiked into the Grand Canyon. We also had reservations for a week with our RV in Trailer Village beginning on the 9th. Well, we all know what happened to the National Parks over the last weeks - they were closed and whether we might be able to make our hike and our reservations were day by day. We obviously made alternative arrangements and are here in Cottonwood at a Thousand Trails campground for 2 weeks. Cathy and Tom, who were to meet us at the Canyon, also made alternative arrangements and are staying in Sedona.

Then, guess what? Arizona, which was being impacted severely by the closure of the Grand Canyon, anted up the money to pay for 5 days for the park to open. They opened the park as of today. Oh, shucks. Now what? And we found out last night at 8:00. The notice seemed to be just a bit short but, again, it is a dynamic situation, changing from day to day.

Imagine our getting up at 2 am (and you thought 0-dark-thirty was early) readying the RV for travel, hitching up the Jeep, pulling out of the campground, driving in the dark up to the Canyon so we could get in at 7:00 when they might open, setting up in the campground there, and beginning our hike down to Phantom Ranch at - whenever we got ready to go. I was having a hard time imagining it and Gary was having a hard time wrapping his head around it too. So, we called Xanterra, who manages Phantom Ranch and the campground and cancelled. Now, Xanterra is caught in a bind but they refunded our whole deposit, no questions asked. They did tell us that they have people lined up for our reservations at Phantom Ranch which made us feel better about canceling.

If we had been 21, we might have driven up to the Canyon early today and hiked down, hiked back up on Monday and either have driven back to Cottonwood or taken a chance and tried to stay in a hotel in the park. But, we’re older and like a bit of planning and preparation.

On the other hand, for today we had planned a hike up Bear Mountain in Sedona with Tom and we continued with this plan. We met him at the trailhead at noon, got our packs ready and began our hike. We already knew that the hike was 2.4 miles long and the trailhead was at 4600’ and the end was at 6400’: steep and all the books call this a difficult hike. I chose it as a real challenge. What was I thinking? Here is the picture of Bear Mountain, the beautiful red rock cliffs in this picture. Big Mistake. Bear Mountain is the white cliff in the middle, way in the background, barely peeking over the beautiful red rock mesa. Did I know that until we got to the top of the red mesa? Nope. Luckily.

The first clue that this hike might be more difficult than it first appeared was the walk to the base of the mountain. From the parking lot, it appeared to be a boring flat plain but in reality, there were 3 gullies that we had to scramble down into and out of to get to the base of the mountain. (On the way back to our cars after the hike, we 3 thought these gullies the diabolical plan of an evil trail builder.)

Once we got to the base of the mountain, the ‘easy’ stuff was over and we started our climb. The only thing that interrupts the straight up is the large rocks on the path that you have to climb over. It’s like using a stair stepper for 2 1/2 hours: a real huffer of a trail. Large rock steps for most of the way, interspersed with climbs up slick rock, interspersed with steps across rock layers at a 90 degree angle. There are plateaus every now and then marking the different layers of sandstone and here we could take a rest and regain our breathing. As we neared the top of the red rock mesa, we were feeling pretty good. thinking that we were near the end. Then we cleared the mesa top, looked ahead and I had my first ‘oh shit’ moment. This was just a false top, the real top was higher and farther. We had a long ways to go.

The saving grace is the beautiful views for the whole hike. Views over Sedona’s red rock canyons, mesas and hoodoos.

Views of the San Francisco mountains in the distance when we got to the top. Views to the mountains ranges in the south. Views of the green valleys below. Every view was superb and they got better the higher we climbed. Sometimes the trail pitched left and sometimes it pitched right, dependent upon which part of the switchback we were on.

But it always pitched UP. And, yes those are pictures of the trail. You might think those are random rocks strewn around the mountain. Nope - that’s the trail.

Without going into all the huffing and puffing and all the stops for ‘picture taking’, we reached the top of Bear Mountain as evidenced by the large cairn. What a glorious view of the Sedona area. We could see Bell, Courthouse, the Cathedral and other marvelous rock formations.

We could also look into Fay Canyon.

We could even see the snow-covered San Francisco peaks north of Flagstaff when we got to the top. I’ve heard rumors that on a clear day, you can see as far as Mount Fuji.

We took time to take pictures and savor the view. Lunch came next, though it was about 2:30 but we knew we had to start down unless we wanted to be hiking down in the dark. We thought we were the last ones down but, as we neared the half-way point, we met others climbing up. It’s 4:00, what are they thinking? In one group, 2 guys and a girl, one of the guys asked if they had time to get to the top before dark. (Now, the girl was grimacing and shaking her head 'no.') Well, you can get to the top before dark - but - then you've got to come down. 

We finally reached the parking lot, changed shoes, said good-bye to Tom and were getting into the car when the Pink Jeep with 6 customers pulled into the parking lot behind us. ‘Did you climb the mountain?’ asked the driver. ‘Yep.’ we said.

‘All the way to the top?’ he queried further. ‘Yep.’ And then we engaged in some general conversation with the rest in the Jeep. I think we must have been part of his show to his clients. ‘Hey, here are some hikers, let’s talk to them.’ Just another tourist attraction, ‘hikers in the wild.’ They’ve seen hikers in zoos and wildlife parks but never in the wild.

Very nice trail. We really enjoyed it: the trail was well maintained and, even though it was rocky, it wasn't covered with the scree which makes footing difficult. The views were marvelous from every level, the levels of geology that the trail takes you through are amazing. At the top was a 360 degree view. It was challenging without being intimidating. It certainly wasn't boring and kept us guessing about where it would lead us next.

4.49  2500'